Community Partnerships
Youth in Philanthropy
United Way has always held a strong belief that our youth are the citizens and volunteers of tomorrow. In that capacity they have a major role to play in the development and healthy positive movement of our community. Young people care about their communities. For the past decade or more United Way of Brandon has developed several different initiatives to try and capture the interest of youth in our community. Those initiatives have had various levels of success. Our commitment to youth is so high that when an opportunity presented itself in the spring of 2010, we simply could not turn away.
Brandon & Area Community Foundation were just reaching the end of a funding cycle with an existing funder for the Youth in Philanthropy (YIP) program. Without a new funding partner the program’s future would be at risk. After preliminary discussions between our two organizations and because the program objectives are well within the strategic vision of the work that United Way would like to see further advanced with our youth, a partnership was agreed upon.
The Objectives of the YIP program are:
- Engage youth in their communities
- Reinforce the spirit of giving in young people
- Provide opportunities for youth leadership development
- Connect youth in local communities and around the world
- Give youth a voice in community foundations and communities
The Brandon & Area Community Foundation’s Youth in Philanthropy (YIP) program makes it easy for young people to find ways to help. By forming youth advisory committees (YACs) within the BACF, young people in their teens raise money, make grants to local charitable organizations, and build lasting friendships with youth not only in Brandon but throughout Canada. In Brandon, the YIP program is run in all three Brandon High Schools as well as Elton Collegiate in Forrest. United Way of Brandon & District is very pleased to have commited $18,000 over the next three years – 2010, 2011 and 2012 after which discussions will take place to talk about a future funding partnership. This program and the youth that will be positively impacted because of it fulfills United Way’s call to action, Change Starts Here.
United Way Helps Its’ Citizens
During High Water Emergency!
In May of 2011 United Way of Brandon & District, stepped out of what people would call our “usual role” and undertook an initiative to help as many citizens of Brandon that we could at the time. At the request of her Worship, Mayor Decter Hirst and members of city council, our United Way instituted a program to help citizens and disenfranchised homeowners and employees during the high water emergency that impacted our community beginning in March of 2011. United Way of Brandon & District established a community benefit program called “Community Emergency Relief Program.”
Program development was driven by community response to this crisis and how many people wanted to support, specifically, those persons who had been displaced from their homes and from their place of work due to the mandatory evacuation order. The City of Brandon asked United Way to under take this leadership role because of United Ways’ length of service in our community, the high level of respect the community has for United Way, our existing infrastructure, and our ability to respond very quickly to this need.
United Way launched funding for this program by making the first contribution of $20,000. In addition additional funds were committed locally and a donation from as far away as Ontario was also received. Individual citizens gave, local business gave, service clubs gave and organized labour gave. It was important to note that United Way did not undertake a special fund-raising campaign for this program-we simply received donations, provided tax receipts for those and then distributed all contributed funds back out to support people impacted by the mandatory evacuation. United Way as always supported the work of the Canadian Red Cross and the Salvation Army during this critical time in our community.
This program was not intended or meant to replace any existing program either not-for-profit or government. The CER program was designed to receive and distribute funds that were offered to this community specifically to support additional needs of people who had been evacuated from the high-risk zones and people who were employed by businesses who had been under mandatory evacuation orders. Rents, mortgages, utilities, taxes, food, and all sorts of other needs, that we could not imagine, had already begun to impact these citizens. Those are the kinds of costs and expenses that were not covered by per diem emergency funding or other program sources.
The process was very simple and all funds donated to the fund were distributed to those who applied until the funding ran out. United Way provided this service free of charge, if $1 was donated to the program, then $1 was distributed out to someone who was in need and met the programs’ basic criteria. No money from donated funds was used to pay the expense of running the program. All program costs were absorbed by current United Way operational funding and dedicated staff and volunteers.
In total $ 74,391.75 was contributed to the program. A total of 318 cheques were distributed to households and disenfranchised employees. A final cheque in the amount of $ 3,510.83 has been given to the Canadian Red Cross to clear the account now that the emergency is over. Special thanks and our heartfelt appreciation is extended to all program contributors – their generosity was fundamental to the program working. United Way of Brandon & District was very pleased to have been able to offer this service to our citizens during this emergency. It is a testament of the historical good work done by United Way in our community, that in a time of great community need that our United Way was once again asked to help.