United Way Cape & Islands Partners With The Non-Profit Toolbox

We are extremely happy to announce that we at the Non-Profit Toolbox are working with the Cape and Island’s United Way to bring education and networking on a consistent basis to the Cape and Islands.  This local United Way really understands the needs of the Cape and Island’s and operates differently than most United Ways in other areas.  Most local United Ways work with small to large organizations with membership drives within those organizations.  Because the average organization on Cape Cod is 8 people they reach deeper into the community to find what is needed and donors to support those needs.  Ninety nine percent of all donations from the cape stay on the cape.  The Cape and Island’s United Way works extremely hard to support the Health and Human Services needs of the Cape and we are happy to partner with them to help support Non-Profit Organizations there.  We hope to see you at our first networking event for the Cape, June 8th at Cape Cod Museum of Natural History.

Lisa Morrissey had a chance to talk with Rich Brothers, President of the Cape and Islands United Way, and discover more information about them and what they see for needs on the Cape.  A transcription of this interview follows the video.

Lisa Morrissey: Good morning, I am very excited today to be speaking with Rich Brothers President of the Cape and Islands United Way. Could you tell me a little about the Cape and Islands United Way and the services you offer?

Richard Brothers: Sure, the Cape and Islands United Way is very much different from everybody’s impression of the United Way because it’s made to be custom for Cape Cod and the Islands. Most United Way Organizations are workplace oriented kinds of fund raising organizations and the average size of the workforce on Cape Cod being eight persons it doesn’t lend itself to that. We have chosen to be in this community. We focus on two things: we want to convene the community around things that are important for this human service community and then once we convene the leaders of this community around those issues then we want to help raise the money to help address those issues. Pretty simple.

Lisa Morrissey: How many non profit organizations to you work with?

Richard Brothers: Well, the Cape and Islands United Way in this year 2010 is funding thirty different programs at about twenty-eight different health and human service providers across Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. We don’t have the old thinking family of agencies the United Way’s used to have. We sort of act like a community foundation and each year we encourage human service providers to ask us for programs that they believe will make an impact in the community and then our group of about sixty five volunteers evaluates the best way to spend the donors dollars towards making the greatest impact through funding programs at human service agencies.

Lisa Morrissey: And what are you most proud of for the Cape and Islands United Way?

Richard Brothers: Well, the sales pitch is that we are proud to be the single largest provider of human service funding other than state and federal government organizations and ninety nine cents out of every single dollar that is raised on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket by the Cape and Islands United Way stays here. There is this great misconception that we’re a branch office of something and money leaves the Cape and money comes to the Cape and neither of those are the case unless the donor wants us to do that.

Lisa Morrissey: Well Rich, we are very excited to have the Cape and Islands United Way working with us, partnering with The Non-Profit Toolbox for our June 8th Meet-up which is taking place at the Museum of Natural History in Brewster. So thank you. What types of things are you hoping to accomplish through that or that non-profits organizations accomplish by attending?

Richard Brothers: One of the other things we try to accomplish with the Cape and Islands United Way, we have this sort of internal buzz phrase that we use about being more than money. We want to try and be more than money into the community, to the human service provider community and this is one of the ways I think we can partner with organizations to be more than money. It’s, you know, the old cliché we’re sick of hearing about teaching to fish and fishing and all that stuff. What we have here is an opportunity for the teaching to fish and partnering with your organization The Non-profit Toolbox and other organizations is what we seek to do to make things better. In my opinion and the opinion of this organization this is one of those opportunities that there are to say “Ok, you can ask us for money, that’s one thing we can give you, we can also give you the opportunity maybe get some help in things you wouldn’t ordinarily get or couldn’t ordinarily make fit into your budget.

Lisa Morrissey: Wonderful, we’ll see you on the 8th.

Richard Brothers: I’ll be there. I’ll have some groceries and we’ll have a good time.

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