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“I love  that monthly payroll deductions allow me to easily budget my charitable giving for the year. I can always give more outside of SECC if I wish to, but can still feel confident I’m doing my small part to make Austin and the world a little bit better.” – Mark Moore, Texas Real Estate Commission  As part of our work to build philanthropy in Austin, we are privileged to serve as the Employee Giving Campaign manager for the State campaign. We work with  60 thousand State employees in Greater Austin to invest in our community.  This past year, State employees in the Greater Austin area invested $2.1 million in their community through the annual State Employee Charitable Campaign (SECC), making 2013 the seventh consecutive year they have given more than $2 million.  “SECC is an easy and effective way to help state employees connect to nonprofits working on important issues that they care about,” said Janette Gibreal, Chair of the Capital Area SECC Local Employee Committee. “Through personal contributions, state employees can continue the wonderful work they do every day by investing in charities that are working hard to make Texas a great place to live and work.” Each year, we’re happy to celebrate the success of these amazing givers by recognizing agencies with outstanding results: State Agencies that made Austin greater in 2013:  Highest Per Capita Gift  1,500 and more employees – Comptroller of Public Accounts ($49.47) 500-1,500 employees – Teacher Retirement System ($223.97) – The Teacher Retirement System increased their per […]

Name: Farmers Insurance Group   Partner for: 15 years   Partner for: Employee Campaign   Our relationship: Involving leadership to make a greater impact Farmers Insurance Group has supported United Way for Greater Austin for nearly 15 years, but has really ramped up their Employee Campaign in the past five. This year, as part of the 2013 Insurance Industry Challenge, Farmers took their involvement with UWATX to a whole new level. Vice President Jim Snikeris helped make this happen by inviting UWATX staff to  speak with employees and share the UWATX mission. UWATX Vice President of Resource Development Debbie McGee and Director of Business Development Beth Krueger also spoke at Farmers leadership meetings. The campaign wouldn’t have been such a huge success without Employee Campaign Leaders Brittany Ilse and Pana Redd, who helped facilitate over 15 Employee Campaign meetings! During the campaign, Farmers set up a table onsite sporting UWATX items including water bottles, pens, and of course pledge forms. Service Point Director Garth Davis encouraged giving by spending time at the table on the company’s first day of campaign, and by being one of the first people to give. He was also one of the first employees to contribute to the Makes Austin Greater wall on display during Employee Campaign – donors wrote their names on Makes Austin Greater stickers, creating a colorful philanthropy wall! Farmers employs best practices: Running a UWATX Branded Campaign Connecting with UWATX outside of Campaign Working to engage HOCT in upcoming volunteer efforts for 2014 […]

Look up ‘philanthropist’ on Wikipedia and you get a pretty narrow view of who gives back – generally wealthy, famous people. But philanthropy originally meant “the love of mankind,” and we see everyday that it’s not limited to major gifts, that the backbone of giving is often less flashy – investments in our community come from everyday people giving a little bit, and knowing that it adds up to a whole lot.  At United Way for Greater Austin, we believe that anyone can be a philanthropist – because we’ve seen it, because any gift is meaningful and because we know the difference it can make for our community and for companies. Since 1924, we’ve worked with companies to provide Employee Giving Campaigns where employees can choose to invest a portion of their paycheck in our community – and the most successful campaigns aren’t necessarily the ones where employees make the most. One of our most giving partners is H-E-B. The company itself gives back generously, but it’s the donations from cashiers and baggers that add up to a whole lot for us – specifically, to more than $1M each year for the last three years in Greater Austin. These gifts come from people like Jackie – she knows the value of giving back first hand. When Jackie was 15, she was in foster care. She then got into a difficult marriage, and needed help getting out of it. At that point she became a single mom who worked and needed […]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn8PdKiy2Ac[/youtube] Bobby Jenkins, President and Owner of ABC Home & Commercial, has been advocating for UWATX for the past year and a half as co-chair of our Employee Giving Campaign. In his own words, it’s been an inspiring experience: I’ve learned a lot – some of the things that resonate with me is a lot of what happens locally with United Way. That’s something that, as United Way has evolved and changed, that local component is near and dear to my heart. And the ability for  United Way to bridge multiple agencies is one of the things I think is unique – there’s a lot of agencies doing a lot of great things, United Way is the common denominator that can help unite them – working together, we can have a lot more impact than individually.