Final Tally In: U of A Faculty, Staff and Students Raise Over $123,000 for United Way of NWA

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas community contributed a total of $123,825.80 to the United Way of Northwest Arkansas during the 79^th annual Hogs United campaign last fall.

“This year’s campaign results reflect the support of those of us at the University for the broader Northwest Arkansas community and I want to thank everyone who made a donation to this important cause,” said campaign co-chair Kathy Deck. “The funds we raised this year will support the United Way of Northwest Arkansas in advancing the common good of thousands of hard working families.”

This year’s campaign featured some new approaches to the traditional campaign.

 “I think the biggest difference this year was the job done by our campus coordinators,” said Debbie McLoud, campaign coordinator. “This is the first year we actively reached out for volunteers to work in their colleges and other units on campus, and the results were phenomenal.

“At Global Campus donations were nearly four times higher than last year. Human Resources and Athletics staff nearly tripled their contributions. In Fulbright College the total was more than double last year. Across the board our campus coordinators were able to increase both the amount of money raised and the number of people making donations.”

This was also the first year that the campaign included student participation. In all students contributed $8,626 to the United Way campaign.

“This was a good start, as far as giving students a chance to participate in the United Way campaign,” said McLoud. “Now that we’ve established the precedent we will get an earlier start next year getting the word out to students and working with the Associated Student Government to plan fund raising events and activities specifically aimed at students.”

McLoud said that a few other changes are planned for next year’s campaign, particularly by starting to plan in June.

“We also want to expand on the success of our campus coordinators by asking them to help recruit their own team of volunteers to spread the word in their units about the campaign, to answer questions about the online donation portal, or collect paper donations,” said McLoud. “We intend to do more marketing, as well, with flyers or posters in strategic areas, and to be more consistent in our branding. We’ve also heard from many on campus that they prefer the old donation envelopes to the online method. So we are looking for an efficient way to make both options available.

“We set very high goals for this past campaign, both in dollar amount and percentage of participation. We didn’t reach those goals, but I think the fact that we aimed high helped us raise a significant amount of money to help our Northwest Arkansas families.”