Tally tops goal for 2004 even though participation didn't increase as hoped

By Greg Rienzi
The Gazette

With only days left to go, the 2004 Johns Hopkins United Way campaign has surpassed its lofty goal. To date, the combined contributions from those at the university, Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Applied Physics Laboratory total $2,590,807, nearly $131,000 past the desired mark, and counting.

Jan. 14 is the official last day Johns Hopkins pledges are marked toward the 2004 United Way of Central Maryland campaign.

The university's campaign officially kicked off on Sept. 23. Johns Hopkins Medicine launched its intensive two-week United Way effort the following month with a free hot dog lunch to anyone who brought his or her completed pledge forms to an outdoor celebration.

Patricia Brown, co-chair of the JHM campaign and president of Johns Hopkins Health Care, said that Medicine opted this year for a fun, focused and educational campaign strategy, one that emphasized participation at any level. Brown said that while participation rates did not increase as hoped, the new strategy was clearly a success as the division raised $1,324,510, surpassing the goal by more than 30 percent.

"We are, of course, very happy we exceeded our goals in terms of dollars," Brown said. "We had a really aggressive campaign, and we knew that we had an achievable goal. We also wanted to double participation, but despite the extra push, we weren't able to change the overall participation rate much from previous years. It is a challenge. Some of our organizations had very high participation rates, however, especially our smaller entities, where we were able to touch people more directly. By all counts, we thought the new approach was extremely successful."

This year's four campaign chairs — for the university, Martha Hill, dean of the School of Nursing; for the Applied Physics Laboratory, John Gibson, program area manager for the Strategic Systems Programs; and Brown and her co-chair for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Martin Abeloff, director of Oncology at the School of Medicine — had set a combined goal of $2,459,900.

This figure represents a total for contributions from JHM and all university divisions except the School of Advanced International Studies, whose donations are reported to the Washington capital area campaign. Last year's combined Johns Hopkins gifts to the United Way of Central Maryland totaled $2,371,214.

As of Jan. 7, 12 of the university's 14 units had exceeded their goals by five percent or more, with the other two closing in on theirs. Of special note in this year's campaign, Johns Hopkins Health Care bested its goal by 44 percent, raising $57,763, with a participation rate of 56 percent. Homewood Student Affairs had the highest participation rate, 65 percent, and raised $30,513. Johns Hopkins University Press had the second-highest participation rate, 48 percent.

APL raised more than $617,000 with a 40 percent participation rate and took part in more than 50 Day of Caring projects.

The university's Day of Caring event took place at a pumpkin farm in Baltimore County, where dozens of Johns Hopkins employees interacted with children from St. Jerome's Head Start, a child-care center in Baltimore. JHU employees also collected books, school supplies and toys for St. Jerome's and the House of Ruth Maryland.

The university topped its goal and raised $1,277,329, continuing the trend of successive record-high totals. Overall, Johns Hopkins institutions had 481 leadership members — 100 of them new — a designation for those who donate $1,000 or more. Leadership members were responsible for 56 percent of the total collected to date.

Earlier in 2004, the United Way of Central Maryland issued a challenge to companies and organizations to increase its number of new donors. In response, JHU had 789 new contributors, who raised more than $173,000.

 

It's not too late to contribute...

There are still five days left to have your donation — and your participation — counted toward the 2004 Johns Hopkins United Way campaign. To register your pledge by Friday, Jan. 14, go to the campaign's secure Web site at www.jhu.edu/unitedway.

If you miss the date, that's OK, too — donations are needed and welcome all year round.

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