Prairieland United Way Sets Pre-Allocation Meeting for FY2020 Funding

By Jeremy Coumbes on December 13, 2019 at 6:24pm

Area non-for-profit organizations interested in applying for funding from the United Way will be able to learn about the process next month.

The Prairieland United Way of Morgan, Scott, Cass, and Northern Greene Counties has scheduled an informational pre-allocation meeting on January 16th for any 501(c)3 non-for-profit organization that are interested in applying for funding through the United Way in FY2020.

Prairieland United Way Director, Karen Walker says that the annual event will help those organizations navigate how to become a United Way agency partner.

This is something that we do every year, we invite anyone in our four county service area that is a 501(c)3 and that would qualify for funding from the United Way, to attend the pre-allocation meeting. At the meeting we will talk about the whole process, we will hand out applications, give information about when those will be due back and how we will set up the allocation meetings.”

Walker said that attending the meeting is mandatory for organizations seeking funding, and that applications will then be due sometime in mid-February. Once those are received, allocation meetings will be held in March so that every applicant gets a chance to speak about the services and needs of their program.

We will have the meetings in the evenings during March. We will have seven of those and we will take the applications and split them into seven different focus areas, such as education, child care, crisis intervention, guidance and mentoring, those are just a few of them.

We will separate the applications into services, and then what we do is, those agencies can apply for funding every year and then at those meetings they get a chance to talk about what their program is, what sort of results they have had in the past, why they think it is needed in our communities, and then the panels at the end of the night will decide how much funding will go out to those agencies.”

Walker said that one thing that is done differently by the United Way is that donors to the annual campaign are invited to sit in on the panels, to hear about the programs and assist in the funds allocation process.

Walker said that the current campaign, which ends in February, is running at about the same pace as this time last year.

Our goal is $460,000.00 this year and right now we are at about 56% of that, so we still have a ways to go. We do have a number of our employee campaigns yet to be turned back in, and a lot of our donations come from those business campaigns. We still have a few that we are working on getting those appointments set up to do those business campaign meetings. So if you are a business that has not worked with us before, we would love to have you. It’s not too late to join in on that, just give me a call and we will get something set up for that.”

Walker said that after the holidays end, the campaign can struggle to reach the finish line and meet that funding goal. She also says that the Prairieland United Way has volunteer opportunities for those who are not able to donate funds, but have time they would like to give.

The pre-allocation meeting will be held on Thursday, January 16th at 9:00 am in the second floor Commission Room of the Municipal Building at 200 W. Douglas St. in Jacksonville.

To find out more information, call Karen Walker at the Prairieland United Way Office at 245-4557