AUW tightens its belt and
shifts focus to fundraising

Kim Gennaula, Aloha United Way’s president and chief professional officer since June, has announced plans to lay off nine employees — a reduction in staff of about 25 percent — as part of an ambitious restructuring aimed at reversing a 30 percent decline in giving during the past five years alone, according to the Pacific Business News.

Reportedly, the changes include reducing the agency’s overhead and administrative costs by more than 25 percent during the next three years while inviting hundreds of additional local nonprofits to request funding. It may also reduce the number of seats on its 33-member board.

Besides shoring up giving, the announced changes address criticism about the organization’s effectiveness in raising money and getting it to the local nonprofits that need it most, Gennaula told Pacific Business News. She became AUW’s chief professional officer in June after serving as director of philanthropy for Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children. Before that, she was a news anchor at KGMB-TV.

AUW raised $9.1 million during its general workplace campaign last year, down from $13.1 million in 2005 despite having exclusive access to employees in more than 1,400 Hawaii companies that issue payroll-deduction pledge cards to employees and sometimes match those contributions dollar-for-dollar.

Some see the 94 partner agencies as a relatively small pool of nonprofits that receive AUW funds. With more than 7,500 registered nonprofits on Oahu, most nonprofits have been out of its funding loop.

Gennaula says the uncertain economy, the rising demand for community services and the need to ensure AUW remains viable and relevant to the organizations it supports are all driving the restructuring.

“I remember back when there was this tremendous, widespread, whole community gathering together, cheering for each other for this effort,” she said. “There was momentum. There was a real sense that it was a tight, communitywide effort, and somewhere along the way over the last 10 years that’s sort of been lost a little bit.”

The organization’s next chapter must focus on bringing in more donors, more dollars and touching the broader nonprofit community, not just the select few, she said. The targets include reducing overhead from the current 16.7 percent of every dollar raised to 12 percent in three years by focusing more resources on fundraising and making it easier for people and companies to donate online.

The nine laid-off employees were in the administrative and information technology departments, functions that are being outsourced, Gennaula said.

AUW wants to expand the number of partner agencies from 94 to up to 400 nonprofits by the start of the 2012 campaign. Starting in January, AUW will email nonprofits that have raised $25,000 or more in each of the last three years inviting them to apply to become a partner agency. It will no longer fund only health and human service agencies.

The five so-called impact areas by which AUW has been distributing its funds — crime and drug use, early childhood development, emergency and crisis services, financial stability and independence and homelessness – will be replaced by three, broader focus areas: health, education and safety net.

The plan is supported by retired First Hawaiian Bank Chairman and CEO Walter A. Dods Jr., who led a then-record-breaking campaign for AUW 20 years ago as its board chair. He says the organization must return to being a truly effective fundraiser rather than trying to duplicate the missions of existing social services agencies in Hawaii.

“They have the advantage of the payroll deductions, of being an umbrella organization and I subscribe to the theory that it needs to be restructured and reinvigorated,” he told PBN. “You can do no good and you can’t help charities unless you’re an effective fundraiser. We have wonderful heads of charitable organizations who can focus on the homeless, the youth, the elderly. If you don’t raise money, you don’t do the kind of community good you’re there to focus on.”