United Way Of Central Indiana Nears Fundraising Goal

United Way of Central Indiana is wrapping up its annual fundraising campaign.  It closed at midnight, Monday.

Last year’s campaign raised $41 million.  CEO Ann Murtlow says the organization made it a priority to push for even more success with its $42.5 million dollar goal.

"Some of that is a leap of faith and some of that is doing things a little bit better and a little bit differently every year," she said.  "We have a very important mission."

As of Monday afternoon, the United Way was about $2.5 million shy of the goal.

Murtlow says cuts within the region’s health care industry are a reason for a slowdown in contributions.

"When you have situations for example when there are significant layoffs, which we certainly saw in some of our large health care organizations, then it just makes everybody a little bit nervous," she said. "We would fully expect to the extent that they are down this year, that we would recover in coming years."

About 90 percent of the organization's community fund goes to programs and agencies.

Murtlow says a positive is improvements to the United Ways’ website. 

She says it was key in communicating the mission and with online donations.

"We really put a lot of effort into the launch of our new website, which is really designed to do a lot better job of communicating the kinds of activities that the United Way is involved in and successes that we've had," said Murtlow.  "We are making it easier for people to stay in touch with us.  Online giving is also very easy through the website."

The local branch could still receive money from national campaigns, but that won’t be known for several weeks.