Frequent Questions

Yes. Your doantion supports United Way of Central Virginia, and we serve the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, and Campbell as well as the cities of Bedford and Lynchburg. If you live outside of Central Virginia, you may designate your donation to your home community by indicating this on the pledge card.

The "Certified Agency" status was eliminated because it had become obsolete. In the past, this status was used to indicate non-Partner Agencies who could receive designations through the United Way of Central Virginia Annual Campaign. As workplace campaigns have evolved, we now honor designations to all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations who comply with the Patriot Act.

Over 99% of your gift to United Way of Central Virginia stays in Central Virginia. Less than 1% of funds is sent outside of our region. This very small percentage is paid as dues to United Way of America and provides valuable services to our United Way, strengthening our work. These activities include development of relationships with national corporations (this resulted in over $250,000 for our communitylast year!), NFL Partnership advertising, technical assistance and professional training, and fortifying government relationships.

United Way of Central Virginia provides its expertise to teh distribution of campaign dollars, the training of agency professionals, and the development of collaborations that will improve the quality of services for our community. Over 100 trained community volunteers determine the level of funding for each funded program at each Partner Agency and carefully invest your donation in areas to create visible results that matter to our community. If you are interested in being part of this team of volunteers, you may indicate so on your pledge form or contact Joan Phelps, Vice President of Community Impact.

Yes, United Way of Central Virginia continues to fund and support the work of the Boy Scouts. Our funding enables the organization to provide outreach activities to inner-city youth through their ScoutReach program, and youth throughout the region who need financial assistance to participate in scouting activities.

No, no funds raised during the campaign support abortion services. Also, no abortion services are provided or performed by any of our Partner Agencies.

Our organization's overhead is less than 17%. This means that more than 83% of United Way of Central Virginia's dollars support services that help people in Central Virginia. This percentage is very good and comparable to other human service non-profit agencies and excellent with respect to teh guidelines set by the Better Business Bureau.

United Way of Central Virginia offers multiple ways to get involved in the community! If you're into volunteering, sign up to participate in Day of Caring - our one-day volunteering extravaganza in May. You can also volunteer through United Way's Young Leaders Society - a group of individuals 21-40 in age or spirit who believe in the mission of United Way and want to create lasting change in our community. You can participate in our loaned executives program where you'll get first hand corporate sales experience and grow professionally and personally by working on our annual campaign. You can sign up to be on a Fund Distribution Review Team and be a part of the decision making process where the money we raise in the annual campaign is distributed to 59 health and human service programs at 28 Partner Agencies. And, of course, we're always in need of helpers around the office for various projects! To get more involved, call our office at (434) 846-8467. We look forward to hearing from you!