Charitable giving, at its very core, should be personal.
No one is graced enough to live a life unaffected by illness, discomfort, deprivation and loss. Few of us have not needed help or not known someone who had need.
Many in our community are generous enough, and fortunate enough, that they can give to a variety of causes, some of which don’t directly touch our lives every day.
But for those in our community who can only afford to give a little, there is another choice: those groups that reach directly to our families, our friends and our neighbours deserve special attention.
Those groups touch us in personal ways and they should inspire personal gestures of support.
So when organizations like the United Way of Central Alberta ask for assistance, they count on you responding on a personal level. It’s a fair expectation, given the breadth and value of the work the 32 member agencies do in this community. They improve the quality of life throughout the region in tangible, measurable ways.
That’s why the United Way is successful year after year, and why local organizers are optimistic they can reach their current fundraising goal of $2 million, even after last year’s campaign fell short of the same goal, raising $1.8 million.
Last year’s economic conditions are not a distant memory; the pain of jobs lost or constricted family income is still real and all around us. Economic uncertainty remains, clouding our choices and crowding our comfort zone.
But we have begun to rebound, and those of us fortunate enough to be well employed should know on a more personal level than ever before the value of charitable gestures. A year of economic loss and imbalance can only help bring home the message that there is significant suffering and need in Central Alberta, and it demands our help.
United Way of Central Alberta campaign chairman Lars Rogers is as optimistic as he is inclusive. “We’d like (Central Albertans) to help us ensure that no one is left behind,” he said at the campaign launch earlier this month.
It’s a lofty goal and he knows it, but he also knows how critical it is to soldier on.
“There are challenges on both sides, with increased demand and decreasing funding,” he said, citing constrained government spending as a big issue in the delivery of community services.
But at their heart, the United Way and its member agencies are not political — it is a big-hearted organization with well-managed goals and transparent operations (with an overhead of just 21 per cent, better than $1.5 million of the money raised last year went to member agencies).
And we should not turn our support for the United Way and its agencies into a political gesture — it should be far more than that. It should be personal. No amount of government retrenching should obscure our obligation to our family, friends and neighbours.
As many as 100,000 people locally are affected by local agency services, the United Way estimates — that’s no small impact, and it’s all around us. That’s personal, and it demands a personal response.
John Stewart is the Advocate’s managing editor.