DC United Way Shows Signs of Recovery

The United Way of the National Capital Area will announce today a 1.7-percent increase in donations this year, for a total of $35.8-million, reports The Washington Post. Though the increase is modest, representatives from United Way, as well as many other nonprofit leaders, believe this could be a sign that the organization has finally moved past the scandals that seriously damaged its reputation a few years ago.

At the beginning of the decade, Oral Suer, the group’s former president, was accused of stealing as much as $1.5-million from the organization during the 27 years he worked there. Other executives also came under fire for alleged mismanagement. Donations decreased dramatically in subsequent years, and in 2006 the organization recorded its lowest fund-raising total in a decade. (Mr. Suer ended up serving two years in prison.)

Betsy Johnson, executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Advancement, explained, “Everybody, particularly from the nonprofit point of view, was afraid that it would take years and years and years, if credibility could ever return.”

But today, leaders such as Barry LeNoir, president of the United Black Fund, in Washington, have expressed confidence in the United Way under the leadership of Charles W. Anderson, the local chapter’s president.

Nationally, the United Way’s 1,293 local affiliates reported receipts of about $4.07-billion for the 2006-7 campaign, a 2.3-percent increase from the year before, said Rick Belous, vice president of research at the national headquarters, in Alexandria, Va.

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