As United Way of Butler County closes out the 2015-2016 fiscal year, it is very clear that the next several years will truly be rebuilding years, both to ensure the sustainability of the organization and the correct path toward having lasting, meaningful impact on the citizens of Butler County.

The 2015 annual campaign closed short of the dollar goal. This shortfall in the campaign, coupled with setting grants at unsustainable levels for multiple, consecutive years in the past, is the onus for taking a closer look at the grant allocations, and re-evaluating funding levels to adjust them to a sustainable level based on what the campaign average has been year over year within the past three years.

The board of directors is now faced with hard decisions about how to fund everyone to the highest amount possible, while continuing to keep the operations of fundraising consistent and viable for the community.

Though grant adjustments are being made, United Way of Butler County is in no way “un-partnering” with any agency. In fact, adding partners to be involved in the conversation and collaborate toward a united, community-wide goal is the intent of making the move toward an issue-focus model. In the past, only those agencies that were receiving grant funding were considered partners of United Way. This left many agencies, doing similar, very good, life-changing work, out of the conversation.

As we enter into the heart of the discussions around this transition, United Way of Butler County is welcoming everyone to the conversation, and encouraging the input and feedback from all agencies, both present and past partners, as well as those that have never partnered with United Way.

The shift to the issue-focus model is keeping consistent with the message that has been portrayed for at least the past 11 years. The goal is to move away from the Band-Aid approach to helping people — with quick, one-time fixes in a very transactional way — and move to long-term, life-changing transformational approaches that help people live better lives as they move forward thanks to the services they receive from Butler County agencies.

Though the fundraising dollar goal will no longer be at the forefront of the community messaging about United Way of Butler County, the goal is not going away completely. In order to do transformational work you must have adequate resources. Therefore, there will still be a fundraising goal for the staff of United Way of Butler County. The main messaging and focus for the community, however, will be on the transformation of the lives, thanks to the dollars donated to United Way of Butler County, and not on the transaction of dollars being collected and allocated. This is a change in mindset, and it is difficult to understand at the outset for those not involved in the process and methods of impact, which is why United Way of Butler County is being fully transparent through the process and trying to educate the community about the changes every step of the way.

According to Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the case of United Way of Butler County, the board of directors and staff have noticed, and been informed by corporations, that the old methods of fundraising are no longer working, and there is a need to not only diversify funds, but to also alter how donors and volunteers are engaged with the organization.

Therefore, the board of directors chose to take a hard look at how United Way of Butler County operates and fundraises, and made the decision to move further toward the impact model by going to an issue-focus, which has been vetted and proven in other areas of Pennsylvania, as well as across the country.

Kierston Hobaugh is the executive director of the United Way of Butler County.