By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The United Way of Greater St. Joseph celebrated the end of the public portion of its annual fundraising campaign.
President Kylee Strough says the campaign has raised a good amount thus far
“To date, $2,335,985 has been pledged to the 2025 United Way campaign,” Strough tells the KFEQmunnity show. “And these are the dollars that will fund allocations to our partner agencies and the programs and services that they do in calendar year 2026.”
Strough says the goal of the campaign is to always do better than the previous year, and so far, it’s pacing ahead of where they were this time last year
“So, that is a good sign that we’re pacing ahead, but I will also say that sometimes pacing ahead is simply some accounts turned in their results a little bit earlier than last year,” Strough explains. “So, it doesn’t always mean we’re going to end up raising more in total, it could just be an effect of timing of when things are received.”
Strough says there are still some businesses and past donors that have not gotten donations before they fully know where their campaign ended.
The money raised comes after the pacesetter campaign started off by raising nearly $1 million, raising $970,506.40
Strough says the pacesetter campaign usually give them an idea of what to expect for donations, but says there has been some pleasant surprises this year
“We have seen some growth at places, and I think the most exciting piece of all of this, we love when the dollars grow because the dollars are what fuel the work, but more than that we love when the number of donors grow because that means there are more of us giving what we can and we’re broadening that United Way circle and that United Way family,” Strough says. “And we have seen some donor growth this year.”
Strough says once the total is known, people from the allocations committee will meet to reaffirm where the money is going.
Money raised will be allocated to United Way’s 16 partner agencies in St. Joseph.
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