East Texas Giving Day is officially April 25, but because of a $50,000 matching gift donation, you can give now. The money raised goes to more than 20 agencies and organizations that help East Texans and the funds stay in our region. Mary Foster with United Way talks about the various ways your donations make life better in East Texas.
Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. East Texas Giving Day is an annual fundraiser for United Way of Smith County. And while the actual day is April 25, this year, an anonymous donor put up $50,000 in matching funds. Here to talk about this year’s East Texas Giving Day is United Way Campaign Coordinator Mary Foster. So what is the goal this year?
Mary Foster: Well, we got $50,000 from a wonderful donor, and so we’re hoping to double that and come up to a total of $100,000.
Mike Landess: And where does that go, Mary?
Mary Foster: Excellent question. We have 26 different nonprofit agencies that we partner with, and at the end of East Texas Giving Day, that goes into our general fund that is allocated to those nonprofits. Not a single penny of it goes to administration or to salaries. It all goes to the programs that we partner with.
Mike Landess: Now, it doesn’t go out of East Texas either, right?
Mary Foster: No. It stays in Smith County. Because each agency has a program that we fund each year. They have to apply for it. It’s almost like a grant program. For an example, like with ARC of Smith County, we have the Performing Arts program, Meals on Wheels, home-delivered meal services. Those stay in Smith County to serve the community. That’s it. It is an amazing program and the money is always well used. There’s no question about that. Now, charities and nonprofits across the country took hits at the height of the pandemic.
Mike Landess: Here in East Texas, our economy has been remarkably resilient. Has the giving been resilient, too?
Mary Foster: It is humbling to see how giving our community is. I came in in 2021, July, so this is the end of my second campaign to go through. Last year we had a goal of $1.9 million. We raised over $2 million. Now that was the first time in 15 years that we had done that. This is the 2022-23 campaign that we’re just completing. And once again, we went over $2 million. It is astounding. Now, I can’t give you the total that we raised, but I can definitely tell you it’s over two. But it has been absolutely mind-boggling because we go into these companies, and they could be making minimum wage or they could be an executive, and they give because they understand what it means to the individuals who are receiving these services. It is the difference between making that utility bill or having food on the table. They get it because we all know how close that can be.
Mike Landess: In looking at your website, there are a number of components as to where this money goes. There are the charities, obviously, but there are things that you’re helping individuals. Talk a little bit about that.
Mary Foster: Absolutely. So within these programs, we have four key areas that we focus on. We have education, financial stability, health and wellness, and crisis intervention. Because so often when a family experiences a crisis, it’s not just one need. And so within each of these groups, the Crisis Center might call and say, we need temporary housing. Or they might say, these children need additional counseling while they’re in school, so that they can make it through the day and keep their grades up and have somebody to talk to, so they might reach out to next steps. It is this beautiful umbrella of saying we acknowledge that one need. It’s not just one need. We want to come around a family and make sure that we are addressing as many of their needs as possible.
Mike Landess: What’s been the biggest challenge for United Way over the past year in terms of service?
Mary Foster: In all of these areas, we’ve had to get a little bit more creative because our model of raising funds is going into a business and talking to the employees and inviting them to give. Well, during COVID, you literally could not go into a building because number one, you couldn’t do it safely. The people weren’t there anymore. They were online, they were remote. And so coming back, learning new strategies as far as doing an online giving campaign like Tyler Gives that we did, where we raised over a quarter of a million dollars in a day. We’re just really trying to get more creative. We reach out to a company and they say, “Hey, can you do a Zoom meeting? Because we have remote workers as well as our branches that are in person.” So we’ve just, we’re learning all the different modes in which you can give, and we have constant online giving on our website. You have to roll with it and get creative.
Mike Landess: Well now even though April 25 is the actual day of giving, anyone who wants to give, anyone who wants to help can do it right now.
Mary Foster: Yes. That is very exciting. April 3, they opened it to where you, if you follow the link, because it’s very important that you follow the link to the nonprofit that you want to give to. Now, of course you can give to all of them, but of course I’m gonna advocate for United Way. You go to East Texas Giving Day and look for United Way of Smith County, and you give to them online, you can give to them starting today, and that’s going to count toward ours. All through the month of April, all the way up to April 25. And I think what you saw on somebody’s page is called a celebration page. So if you’re not in a place to give, you can fill out a celebration page on behalf of your nonprofit on Facebook.
Mike Landess: Yes. OK.
Mary Foster: The fun thing is, is that it creates a link that you can either text to somebody or you can put it into an email. And so we’re just really expanding on the different ways. But you can give through East Texas Giving Day all the way through the end of April.
Mike Landess: So your job is to help get this thing going and that sort of thing. Tell me about some of the goals over this next year that United Way has in mind in terms of being able to serve the East Texas community.
Mary Foster: Well, we’re really excited because during the summer we take that opportunity between the previous year’s campaign to our new kickoff campaign. We take the summer months to reach out to new companies that we don’t have a relationship with. I’m calling the area Chambers of Commerce, and I wanna reach out to outside of Tyler because we ask every year and they perform fantastically. But I also know because our services reach out to all of Smith County, I want us to really focus on some of the outer cities. We wanna be able to introduce ourselves as United Way, what we do, the programs that we support to Whitehouse, to Bullard, to Troup because they’re receiving these services, and I want give them an opportunity to get involved.
Mike Landess: There is always a challenge in engaging in the social media aspect of that. How has that changed fundraising?
Mary Foster: We use a lot of Facebook, but we have an Instagram account, we have a LinkedIn account, and so I do wanna reach out to those and kind of get creative.
Mike Landess: Any final thoughts before we go?
Mary Foster: I just wanna encourage anybody whether you want to give on East Texas Giving Day on the 25th of April, or if you are listening to this on the radio, and you get to the office or you get home and you go, “You know, I could give $5 because I recognize those nonprofit agencies and I know the good that they do. I wanna benefit all of them.” That $5 is gonna benefit every single one of them.
Mike Landess: Our guest has been Mary Foster, campaign coordinator for this year’s East Texas Giving Day. To hear this interview again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)