United Way Worldwide
Organizational Scorecard Definitions & Background
A guide to measuring performance
Donors (Retained & New): When it comes to reporting the number of donors, United Ways are asked to include
estimates where necessary. If the exact # of donors from certain accounts, particularly those processed by a third
party, are unknown, United Ways should make every reasonable attempt to estimate the number of donors. (It is
better to provide a reasonable estimate for the number of people donating in a workplace campaign than exclude
the workplace entirely from the total.) *NOTE: The United Way Network Financial Issues Committee is currently
drafting clearer guidelines for donor count. Coming in December!*
Leadership Donor: An individual that is contributing $1,000+ to any United Way in a calendar year. These
individuals are members of a formal Leadership or Major Giving program with dedicated staff time, materials and
strategy. Currently, the 6% of our donors who are Leadership givers (all gifts over $1,000) account for 1/3 of all
United Way resources raised in the United States.
Tocqueville Donor: The Tocqueville Society recognizes local philanthropic leaders and volunteer champions in the
United States, France and Romania who have devoted time, talent, and funds to create long-lasting changes by
tackling our communities’ most serious issues. Membership in the Alexis de Tocqueville Society is granted to
individuals who contribute at least $10,000 annually to a member United Way.
Million Dollar Roundtable Donor: Members of United Way’s Million Dollar Roundtable have either made a pledge
of $1 million or more over the next five years, have given outright gifts of $1 million, or have given $1 million over the
last 10 years. Million Dollar Roundtable Members frequently provide funding which can transform the impact and
initiative work of United Way locally, regionally, nationally and globally.
Advocates:
1. Grassroots Advocates - Letter Writing, Calling and Petition Signing
Individuals who wrote or signed a public policy advocacy letter on a United Way issue (including email and petition signing) or who made a call on behalf of a United Way advocacy issue.
2. In-Person Advocates - Policy Maker Visits
Individuals who made at least 1 personal visit to a local, state, or national policy maker on behalf of a
United Way issue.
3. In-Person Advocates - Public Meetings
Individuals that United Way successfully recruited to attend a public meeting/event on behalf of an
advocacy issue (e.g. education forum, housing summit or awareness rally, etc.)
4. Traditional Media Advocates
Individuals that wrote an op-ed or letter to the editor for local, regional, or national media outlet on
behalf of United Way issue
5. Social Media Advocates
Individuals that directly advocated for a United Way issue through social media channels by
tweeting, retweeting, or sharing (not just "liking"). Consider both direct advocacy to decision-makers
and social sharing of advocacy calls to action
6. Advocacy Strategists
This includes advocacy strategists (e.g., advocacy committee members) who helped articulate
United Way policy/issue positions
7. Other Advocates
This includes advocates that engaged with United Way through other activities not captured above
United Way Worldwide
Volunteers:
1. Board/Policy Making Volunteers
This includes trustees and past presidents.
2. Loaned Executives
3. United Way Campaign Volunteers
This includes campaign volunteers who are not Loaned Executives but are campaign volunteers
working w/United Way. A company's internal campaign volunteers should be counted.
4. Internal Campaign Coordinators & Campaign Committee Volunteers
These employees help run an internal company campaign.
5. Community Impact/Community Building Volunteers
6. Direct Service Volunteers
This includes but is not limited to those volunteers providing direct service support for 2-1-1,
volunteer centers, EITC tax preparation activities, board training, management assistance, and other
programs.
7. Day(s) of Service Volunteers
This includes all volunteers who participate in events managed and coordinated by United Way such
as Day of Action, Day of Caring, Make A Difference Days and MLK Days. These events may include
volunteering with community agencies or participating in designated community volunteer projects.
8. Planned Giving/Endowment Volunteers
Individuals that assist United Way with planned giving or United Way endowment programs.
9. Crisis Readiness/Disaster Relief Volunteers (if applicable)
This includes volunteers who gave time preparing for or responding to natural or manmade disasters
or crisis recovery in local United Way communities.
10. Other Volunteers
Include any other volunteers who give their time and services to directly support your United Way,
not mentioned above (E.g.: HR. communications, web support, etc.) Please specify.
Churn Rate: The ratio of donor who previously gave last year but elected to no longer give to the donors who were
retained this year. United Ways typically replace lapsed donors, masking the churn rate. For example, if you had
100 donors last year and you have 100 donors this year, you might be tempted to say you had zero churn rate,
however if 25 donors did not renew their gift, you would actually have a 25% churn rate since you would have to
recruit 25 new donors to replace them just to stay even. This churn analysis using the churn tool
(online.unitedway.org/churn) should be applied to the following categories to identify retention and growth
strategies:
 Total Donors
 Leadership Donors
 Tocqueville Donors
 Loyal Contributors (retained for 10+ years)
 Workplace Campaign Percent of Participation
 The Number of Workplace Campaigns Renewed
New Donors: New financial contributors to United Way in the current year being reported who did not give the
immediately preceding year. This is applied to the following categories:
 Total New Donors
 New Leadership Donors
 New Tocqueville Donors
 New Workplace Campaign Donors
 New Individual Donors (existing accounts) (conversion)
 The Number of New Workplace Campaigns
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United Way Worldwide
Current Year Support (CYS): This is your measure of total contributions raised toward mission.
Campaign: Campaign Production includes workplace employee giving, corporate giving, leadership giving clubs,
special events, gross combined government campaign proceeds (if your UW is the PCFO), direct mail appeals, and
gross campaign proceeds from area-wide arrangements (e.g. Tri-State, UWONE, etc.), but excludes incoming
designations/transfers to your United Way from other United Ways, in-kind gifts, interest income, government
grants, special fundraising drives, and endowment income (except when specifically restricted to the campaign).
One critical distinction in campaign:


For annual campaign appeals managed by your United Way (regardless of how these pledges are
designated or distributed and regardless of who serves as the processor): United Ways should report total
pledges generated in their solicitation area.
For annual campaign appeals managed by another organization (a federation, non-profit, the company
itself, an independent party) or co-managed by your United Way and another organization: United Ways
should report only its share of campaign proceeds including designations to member agencies/funded
organizations paid through United Way.
Resources Under Management (RUM): Resources Under Management is the measure of funds that can be
directly applied to mission. It is equal to Current Year Support minus UW2 (Designated Gifts).
Corporate Gifts: Undesignated donations to United Way from United Way corporate partners. Includes Corporate
Social Responsibility grants and employee matching grants.
Special Events: Special events activities may be reported in several places in the United Way Continuum.
Proceeds from the event, if reported as a part of campaign totals and distributed with campaign, are included in
UW1 of the Continuum. Sponsorship or underwriting of special events, whether by an individual or a company, are
included in UW3, contributions beyond the campaign. Item 4d Pledge Processing Fees is intended to capture the
fees charged for the processing of campaigns on behalf of other United Ways such as in the case of national,
regional or multi location companies, not designation processing fees collected or held back by United Ways on
local campaigns.
Non-Workplace Individual $: The total individual contributions to United Way that were not contributed through a
United Way workplace campaign.
Affinity Groups Examples:
a. Women's Giving Program
b. Student United Way
c. Young Leaders Giving Program
d. Hispanic Giving Program
e.
f.
g.
h.
African American Giving Program
Asian Giving Program
LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender)
Other
Foundation/Private Grant $: The total contributions from grants and gifts contributed from personal trusts,
community foundations, etc. This includes restricted grants and gifts from personal trusts, community foundations,
etc.
Government Grant $: The total contributions given to United Way from local, state or national government that are
used to support United Way operations, initiatives, or programs. This is specific to grants that are beyond the
workplace campaign.
Planned Giving $: Planned giving is a planning technique for giving assets. Typically, asset based gifts can be
current (today) or deferred (come to United Way at some future point). The more zeroes on the gift (today or
tomorrow) the more likely it will utilize asset based planned giving techniques. Typically, the average American’s net
worth is 12% cash and 88% assets meaning that current or deferred planned gifts are typically 100-over 1,000 times
an individual’s average annual gift. The most common current planned gift is stock and the most common deferred
planned gift is bequests. Bequests to charities totaled $26.81 billion in 2013. Planned Giving includes realized or
expected asset based donations (planned gifts), outright gifts to a United Way endowment, and outright gifts made
using assets (stocks, property, etc.
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United Way Worldwide
Community Goal: A metric publicly declared by a United Way with their coalition of partners that identifies intended
results in Education, Financial Stability and/or Health for a specific community population (e.g. by 2020, 85 percent
of children will be prepared for kindergarten, United Way of Cincinnati’s Bold Goals in Education).
Impact Strategies: Targeted plan that includes a specific set of approaches to change conditions to improve lives
for individuals and/or for populations within a community. Impact strategies aim to benefit a specific population –
defined geographically, demographically, or as experiencing a shared problem –not all children, adults, families, etc.
Outcomes: It is important to note that the goals of your Community Impact agenda should be based on quantifiable
results. Metrics for success should be based on how much specific outcomes are changed for a target population
and/or underlying community conditions are changed.
Measuring Trust:
 Trust is the foundation of the United Way brand. Trust drives engagement. As trust goes up, volunteering
and giving go up. Nationally, United Way Worldwide tracks public trust on an annual basis, but it is also vital
that local United Ways track your own trust on the local level.
 Trust tracking is measured among the general population in United Way communities and takes place
through public opinion/market research in local United Way communities.
Common methods for trust to be tracked in communities include but are not limited to:


UWW Brand Tracker (formerly Public Opinion Poll)
Third party research firm/university with UWW support and/or guidance
Net Promoter Score: The Net Promoter Score is based on the fundamental perspective that the public’s opinion of
an organization divides them into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.
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