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I am the director of a small United Way in Ohio and believe me, I and my volunteer board of trustees, are far from liberal. Most United Way's are and their volunteers are very conservative. We oppose big government, believe in local control, DO NOT FUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD or GAY RIGHT ACTIVITIES and continue to strongly support the boy scouts. There are approximatelhy 2,000 UW's in the US, each and everyone is autonomous and run by local volunteers. Most belong to the United Way of America, (that's where Arimony was the Exec.) which is essentially a trade association, provides training opportunities, discounted supplies, national advertising etc. They have no say in who or who we don't fund, do not allocate any of their dues to agencies (such as planned parenthood)

I have been a lifelong conservative and freeper since 1998 and I really get frustrated when people speak out of their butts without researching the situation. I love Bill O'Rielly and was furious last night. I, as well as many other UW's, were also furious that the NY UW or UWA were unavailable for comment. Apparantly they will be on with him tonight.

Re: the UW September 11 fund. Before I accepted local donations to pass on (and we are passing 100% on, we consider these outside of our local campaign and there are no costs associated with it) I talked with the folks in NY. Obviously they are not only overwelmed with the task at hand responding to needs, but how to insure the funds are properly spent. A coalition was immediately formed including several trust funds and foundations. No one agency can just dispense the funds, which I feel totally appropriate. Think about the scandal if checks are immediately cut to families when it turns out they have over a million plus in insurance, or the sicko's who are faking that they have a dead relative. There are many issues more than just cutting checks to the victims like grief counseling and groups for the children. Maybe a grant will be given to an existing agency, but this is a service above and beyond what they might have been capable of doing without additional funds.

All I am saying is, give this a chance before jumping on the negative bandwagon. It is still so early to really assess then needs in NY, DC and for the airplane victims. It's been less than a month!

That being said, many freepers have ranted about the UW for years, and some for, what I consider, very legitimate reasons. There are some communities, where I to live and work which had cut out Boy Scouts or passed on dollars to Planned Parenthood, I would absolutely refuse to give.

What I ask is that you know your community and your UW, than make your choice. A long time contributor (and former board member and volunteer) came into my office a few weeks ago VERY upset because he understood that UW was against the boy scouts. I explained our position (which is we totally support them). He then said we should not be paying dues to UWA (which is MINIMAL, .7% of our $750,000 campaign). I explained that UWA is neutral on the whole subject as they are with anything and that we would not belong if they starting telling our community what we should or should not support. He then showed me a solititation for funds to support a legal battle in which it was IMPLIED that UNITED WAY was cutting out the Boy Scouts. Yes there are maybe 25 UW's that have cut funding, but that means 1750 continue to support them. Again know your facts and....yes..well freepers...flame on. I guess I asked for it.

If you have any specific questions re your community, feel free to freepmail me.

thanks you for letting people know that the United Way is made up of many local organizations

I am very aware of the work being done by the Sept 11 Fund and know that they are doing great with a huge job. I have associates at the NY Community Trust who are working with NY United Way on this and I would trust them completely with my donations.

You and the Bity Clinton. You're just never gonna learn!

Thank you for the explaination of the interworking of UW. So many people gave so much money, unselfishly. Many of us are getting nervous about WHERE the money is going to end up. Unfortunately, many thought it was going to go to help the firemen's and other rescuer's families and now it appears that isn't the case. I have had some bad experiences with the RC. My local UW's support of Planned Parenthood troubles me. I'm glad to know that each UW is separate and they aren't interconnected.

The United Way is very hard sell.

My husband (a Libertarian/Conservative) worked for a Fed govt. agency part-time during grad school in the D.C. area, during Reagan. The United Way people actually had the 'liberty' (OK, from Feds) to corral all the employees into a room for these big, cheerleading, donation meetings during work time, complete with balloons and so forth. They really put people on the spot. During these 'meetings,' held on company (tax-financed) time, they asked for contributions and monthly deductions from individual's paychecks. The activities to be financed with contributions were rather vaguely defined and - my husband thought it was completely outrageous. Wonder if taxpayers know about this. It's an annual process -- at their (taxpayer) expense.

I'm not categorically opposed to the United Way, and there's nothing wrong with soliciting funds AFTER work hours, or via the Mail. But LOCAL charities are best from an accountability perspective. Anything this 'big' gets away from direct control by the actual donors, and can be corruptly administered with the vast majority of contributors knowing nothing about it.

I wonder how much of this money is used for political campaigns and 'non-profit' organizations (you know, -- like Jesse Jackson's crowd). As I recall, many "non-profit" groups are funded via charitable orgs; and help get "voters" (read: Democrats) "registered to vote," etc.

Great.

All the big California UW's are run by leftists that support the gay/abortion crowd and oppose the BSA. I'm proud to say that I haven't given them a nickel in over 20 years.

They are very tricky with their policy of allowing you to designate which charities get your contributions. This is a total scam!

The money all goes into one liberal pot. All they have to do is make sure that each charity gets at least as much as was designated in total in the designated contributions. Since the vast bulk of contributions are not designated, this rarely affects anything. They can use their liberal inclinations to hand out the money as they see fit.

A very clever use of statistics to fool the rubes . . .

Too bad all United Way organizations aren't like yours. Forgive me, but I still think UNITED WAY STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN! For victory & freedom!!!