Our Annual Allocations Process

This is typically a busy month for us. The warmer Minnesota weather brings more opportunities for us to be out in the communities. Connecting with our neighbors and friends. Reminding all of what we’re actively working on to strengthen Steele County. The month of June is also when we typically send out our annual grant award letters to our partnering agencies that have been approved to receive next year’s funding.

The process really kicks off each year in January. That’s when we mail out the invitations to apply for funding. This communication also gives us the opportunity to notify the agencies of when the annual training session will be held. Typically, in early to mid-February. This year’s training was especially noteworthy for us because we introduced a new secondary application. We call it the short form application. It’s a simplified application that takes considerably less time to complete than the standard application. We made this application available to agencies that are requesting at or less than $5,000. We had a total of four agencies utilize this application in its pilot year. We’re excited to see how it continues to evolve and hopefully introduce new partners to United Way!

The rest of our approved partner agencies completed the standard application and (along with our short form applicants) had until the end of March to get those submitted. During this same time, the team at United Way of Steele County recruits the panels of individuals that will be responsible for reviewing the applications and eventually coming together to make decisions on the awarded grant amounts. This is our Community Investment Advisory Board or CIAB as I’ll refer to it. You may have heard of this body of individuals in the past or even served a time or two. The CIAB is made up of community members that care about our communities and support the mission of United Way.

The three panels (Health, Financial Stability, and Education) attend a training session in early April and then have roughly a month to review the applications ahead of the interviews with the partner agencies. These interviews are typically during the opening week of May; as they were again this past month. Depending on the panel, the members spend the majority of one or two workdays in these interviews. The goal during deliberations is to come to an agreement on how much to award each of the interviewed agencies. These recommendations then go on to our Community Investment Committee for initial approval and then on to our full Board of Directors for final approval. This year’s awards were approved at the May meeting, and I’ll be preparing award letters later this week!

Thank you to all our 2023 CIAB members. Your input into our annual allocations process is invaluable to the work that we do! If you’re interested in possibly serving on next year’s Community Investment Advisory Board, give us a call at (507) 455-1180.

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Neil Lyons is the Operations Coordinator for United Way of Steele County. He can be reached at 507-455-1180 or via email at neil.lyons@unitedwaysteelecounty.org. For more information visit our website www.unitedwaysteelecounty.org