Campaign Coordination Guide

Setting Your Campaign Up for Success

By leading your company’s workplace campaign, you join a passionate group of change-seekers and trailblazers creating lasting change in Buffalo & Erie County. You are an influential frontline volunteer who raises awareness about the vital role United Way of Buffalo & Erie County (UWBEC) plays in the community and helps your company reach its philanthropic and community engagement goals. Together with passionate supporters like you, we’re leading the fight to rebuild an equitable and more resilient Buffalo & Erie County.

United Way is ready to support you with the tools and resources you need to succeed. This guide serves as an outline for an easy and effective workplace campaign. Remember, you can contact your United Way Account Executive anytime for additional assistance. Don’t have a United Way Account Executive? Contact us using the button below.

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Prepare

One to three months prior to your campaign.

Build Your Team

​Get support from all areas of your oganization

  • Leadership team
  • Cross-functional departments
  • Community minded associates
  • Emerging leaders
  • Union (where applicable)

Plan and Strategize

  • Work with your United Way Account Executive to review campaign history and identify successes, challenges, and new opportunities.
  • Set a campaign goal that your campaign team and employees can achieve.
  • Set campaign dates, create a communication plan.
  • Collaborate with your United Way Account Executive to determine how you will capture donations, whether online through our ePledge system or traditional paper pledge forms.
  • Make an ask or confirm your Corporate Gift (where applicable).

Communicate

  • Consider the best combination of ways to reach employees.
  • Build a timeline and plan to distribute messaging throughout your campaign. The timeline can include a campaign announcement, kickoff, mid-campaign reminder, a final ask, and a thank you.
  • View our Campaign Materials for sample messaging, images, videos, downloads, and other materials that you can integrate into your communications.

Execute

Most campaigns run for one to four weeks, but larger or multi-site organizations may run longer.

Launch Your Campaign

  • Begin distributing your communication plan to launch your campaign.
  • Work with your Account Executive to host a campaign kick-off presentation to bring awareness to the work of United Way.
  • Utilize the campaign team members to keep the momentum going by celebrating daily wins, sharing progress, and reminding employees of the campaign goal.
  • Promote any corporate match, corporate gifts, or other incentives to increase contributions.
  • Don’t be afraid to make the ask!

Provide Inspiring Experiences

  • Bring in a United Way speaker or share a video from our UWBEC video library to help employees understand the impact of their contributions.
  • Participate in The ALICE Experience, a engaging simulation that will challenge your understanding of financial hardship and reveal important insights about the often invisible needs in our community. Click here to request a simulation.
  • Encourage friendly competition, and have fun! Use rivalries to encourage participation challenges between teams. In the end, the community wins!

Wrap-Up

United Way is here to support and engage your employees year-round. Ongoing community involvement can help attract, engage, and retain high-performing employees and improve employee satisfaction.

Celebrate

  • Thank your campaign team and donors.
  • Recruit a member of leadership to send a company-wide thank you.
  • Celebrate your success! Share the impact of your campaign through newsletters, emails, social media, and more.
  • Consider hosting an end-of-campaign celebration event such as a thank you luncheon, ice cream celebration, or happy hour, etc.

Analyze and Improve

  • Finalize campaign results. Submit payroll deduction information to your HR or payroll processing department.
  • Take time to debrief with your team and your Account Executive, capturing best practices and opportunities for next year.

Engage Year-Round

  • Promote United Way Giving Communities as a way for employees to extend their impact and deepen their engagement with our work. Based on their giving level, employees can join Women United or Next Generation United and take part in meaningful, year-round events, volunteer opportunities, and engagement.
  • Encourage employees to participate in volunteer opportunities on their own, or as a company. Access volunteer opportunities anytime at VolunteerWNY.org.
  • United Way can also help you and your employees grow their professional skills. Opportunities exist to participate in our annual Board Leadership Training, serve on a Giving Community Advisory Board, help guide United Way’s funding decisions as an investment volunteer, and more. Talk to your Account Executive about getting involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

The typical campaign runs for two to four weeks, though some larger organizations or those with multiple sites may hold a longer campaign. Work with your Account Executive to plan a time period that is sufficient to kick off your campaign, get the message out effectively and make your ask.

Most campaigns take place from August to November, but they can happen at a time that is best suited for your organization.

Your ePledge site takes approximately 2-3 weeks to set up. Learn more about ePledge here.

Payroll deduction usually runs from January 1 – December 31. Your company sets your payroll schedule.

Yes. We are one of 1,400 community-based United Ways across the country. Each is separately incorporated and independently governed by local volunteers. Contributions raised in Erie County stay here, and decisions about which programs to invest in and which partnerships to pursue are made here in our local community. UWBEC Investment Volunteers help inform the decision process by evaluating applications from potential grantees and making funding recommendations in order to address community needs.

Yes. This year, up to $300 of your donation may be tax-deductible, even if you don’t usually itemize. The new charitable deduction allows most Americans to deduct donations to charities from their taxes when filing for 2021. Please, donate to United Way of Buffalo & Erie County today. For additional information, please see our Donor Policies.

As a service to donors, we make it possible to specify a non-profit program to receive your donation. However, undesignated gifts make the biggest impact in our local community. Starting with our 2023 campaign, we have a modest cost-recovery charge of seven percent (7%) on donor-designated contributions to partially offset the cost of running and processing a charitable giving campaign. For additional information, please see our Donor Policies.

United Way, like every other not-for-profit and for-profit organization, has functional expenses associated with its operations. For our fiscal year ending March 31, 2020, these expenses amounted to 15.66% of our revenues, which include pledges to the annual campaign. For additional information, please see our Donor Policies.

United Way’s own operating budget is audited by an independent accounting firm and is carefully scrutinized by the Finance Committee of United Way’s Board of Directors. They approve the budget annually and receive regular financial reports. For additional information, please see our Financials.

Your United Way Account Executive is a great resource and will be happy to help answer any additional questions. If you do not yet have a United Way Account Executive, contact us.

Thank You!

Thank you for your time, talent, and leadership of your organization’s United Way campaign. We are in this together, and it’s the strength of our community partners that drives real change. We hope this guide will provide you with the necessary resources to run your campaign. Please reach out to your United Way Account Executive for additional support and guidance throughout your campaign.