The United Way System at the Crossroads: Community Planning and Allocation
- 1 December 1996
- journal article
- conference paper
- Published by SAGE Publications in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
- Vol. 25 (4), 428-452
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764096254003
Abstract
United Way (UW) organizations have long portrayed themselves as performing three core functions for local communities: fund-raising, community planning, and fund-allocation. Contradictory forces increasingly threaten the ability of UW organizations to perform all of these core functions. Some remain hidden and unacknowledged for some period of time. Many UW systems face the same challenges: how to raise funds, address needs, and respond to diverse constituencies; how to manage conflicts with adjacent United Ways; and how to create and maintain internal consensus to address these challenges effectively. These are important questions for understanding how organizations relate to their environment and for understanding U.S. society. The scope of United Way systems is impressive and plays a key role both in shaping community perceptions of problems and as a major avenue through which the corporate sector takes an active role in local communities.This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- The United WayPublished by Columbia University Press ,1990
- The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational FieldsAmerican Sociological Review, 1983
- Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and CeremonyAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1977
- Resource Allocations in United Funds: Examination of Power and DependenceSocial Forces, 1977
- Environments of OrganizationsAnnual Review of Sociology, 1976
- The Causal Texture of Organizational EnvironmentsHuman Relations, 1965
- Interorganizational Analysis: A Hypothesis on Co-ordinating AgenciesAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1962