Andrews Wins United Way Awards

Successful faculty & staff campaign worth celebrating

United Way campaign leaders have some fun with bubbles as they kick off the 2014 campaign for faculty and staff. The year's theme was "Bursting the Andrews Bubble." (Photo by Darren Heslop, IMC staff photographer)

“The mission of Andrews University has always resonated with the mission of United Way,” says Niels-Erik Andreasen, president of Andrews. “That is, to improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities.”

Andrews employees truly embraced the 2014 United Way campus campaign theme, “Bursting the Andrews Bubble,” ending the campaign with our best-ever results.

“The campaign goals we set were definitely ‘stretch’ goals, and while we didn’t quite hit those goals, we burst our own bubble and achieved new levels,” said Dalry Payne, United Way campus campaign leader.
The totals for the last seven years of this on-campus campaign demonstrate how far the faculty and staff are willing to stretch:

United Way Campaign Totals 2007–2014
2014: 216 people gave $22,811.85!
2013: 142 people gave $16,549
2012: 135 people gave $14,538
2011: 90 people gave $9,145
2010: 87 people gave $8,401
2009: 82 people gave $10,179
2008: 48 people gave $4,800
2007: 91 people gave $11,202

In addition, Andrews University won three awards at the United Way Campaign Celebration held last month in Benton Harbor, Michigan: a Campie Award, the Spark Award and the David J. Weichhand Award.

The Campie Award is an award that recognizes successful employee campaigns that benefit fundraising campaigns. The Spark Award is given for best practices and achieving notable results in the campaign.

The David J. Weichhand Award has been presented to participants since 2007 and is named for the late president and CEO of United Federal Credit Union.

“This year’s recipient created a campaign committee composed of employees at all levels of leadership,” read the award presenter at the event. “Supported by their president, their committee membership infused their organizational culture into the campaign to affect the community around them. Their success was marked by many best practices, to include kicking off their campaign with pompoms, donning Live United shirts to make a splash in their parade, sharing their agency tour experiences through thoughtful organizational communication and thanking donors with a celebratory video full of bubbles!”

Campaign leaders thanked their teams in a wrap-up email, expressing how proud they were of the interest and participation of so many in a large-scale team effort.

“It was a huge step in letting our community neighbors know that Andrews cares about our community outside of the Andrews bubble,” says Rebecca May, campaign coordinator and director of campus & community relations at Andrews. “Most importantly we did our part and made great strides in helping the under-resourced in our community.”

For more information about United Way and to learn how you can get involved, visit unitedway.org.