Does Your United Way Coddiwomple?
Recently, I was in an REI store (a sporting goods, camping gear, travel equipment, and clothing store) and saw this sign in the hiking and climbing section of the store. As someone who enjoys hiking, I love to coddiwomple. Get up early on a glorious morning, tie on my hiking boots, and head out to see where the trail takes me. I generally know if I am heading north or south, east or west, but I don’t have a particular destination in mind. Coddiwompling in the great outdoors is an adventure into the unknown, where you’ll see things you didn’t expect, and regardless where you end up, you will enjoy the journey.
The Community Impact Coddiwomple
As self-proclaimed community impact organizations, United Ways talk in aspirational ways about impacting their community, helping their friends and neighbors, and creating lasting change. Most United Ways also explain every detail about their allocation or investment process, how partner agencies are vetted, which programs are funded, and the many volunteers and volunteer hours that go into this process. Between the aspirational language and detailed explanation of the process, United Ways are very purposeful about their community impact.
However, most United Ways coddiwomple because they have a vague destination when it comes to their community impact. Helping people or creating lasting change are vague destinations that any nonprofit organization could rightly claim. Categories like education, income, health, and basic needs are also vague destinations. If you ask ten people what they think of when you say “education” or “income,” you will get ten different answers and probably all of them would be right. Categories like education, income, health, and basic needs are vague destinations because people do not have a common understanding of what they mean or include.
Coddiwompling = Irrelevant
Although coddiwompling in the great outdoors might be a blast, when community impact coddiwomples it makes a United Way irrelevant. If you expect donors to support your United Way, you need to have a clear destination. Donors need to understand the clear destination of their contribution – such as helping children read at grade level, providing permanent housing for homeless people, or lifting families out of poverty. Donors need to “see” that destination in their minds, they need to be able to “feel” the change.
For a long time, United Ways have struggled with the perception of being a pass-through or middleman between the donor and local nonprofit organizations and programs. This perception is perpetuated when United Ways have a vague destination. Think about the many nonprofit organizations in your community. Do they have vague destinations? No. If United Ways are going to remain relevant they cannot coddiwomple, they must have a clear destination.
A Crystal-Clear Destination
The clearest community impact destination you can create for your United Way is to set a bold goal of helping a certain number of people to no longer experience a specific issue such as poverty, homelessness, or hunger.
We have been helping United Ways transition their destination to counting people who no longer need help for years. We call these United Ways issue focused, and we help them to set goals like “United, we will lift 15,000 families out of poverty by 2028” (United Way of Pierce County) or “70% of third graders will read on grade level by 2025” (United Way of Pickens County).
When issue focused United Ways measure the number of people who no longer need help, they become more relevant to their donors and community. When issue focused United Ways measure the number of people who no longer need help, they become more sustainable as they grow and diversify resources. When issue focused United Ways measure the number of people who no longer need help, they become more impactful as they change lives in their community.
Put an End to Coddiwompling
Setting a clear destination for your United Way is the most important thing you can do to make your United Way relevant, sustainable, and impactful for years to come. It all starts with a conversation, like our Challenges and Opportunities Retreat or our Introduction to an Issue Focus Retreat. We can help your United Way select a clear destination and put an end to coddiwompling.