Pacesetters

Wow – you wouldn’t know it if you were in my shoes but the 2009 campaign STILL hasn’t officially kicked off yet! The official start to our annual workplace campaign is mid-September but the campaign staff and our volunteers have been going full throttle since June. A special group of “early-birds” that I want to highlight here are our Pacesetter campaigns.

Each year, in the hot days of summer, we join up with a community volunteer to recruit a group of companies that agree to set an aggressive goal for their United Way campaigns and then run their campaigns before the rest of the community even gets started. The hope is that this set of companies can set the pace for other companies to follow – thus building the momentum for a successful community-wide campaign.

Our lead volunteer in the 2009 pacesetter effort is Gary Palmer, President and CEO at Prairie Meadows. Gary is no rookie at community engagement and this is his second year in a row lending his time to recruiting our pacesetter companies. He did an outstanding job this year recruiting a top notch group of organizations that were eager to demonstrate their community support. Those companies are (in alpha order): Alliance Technologies, AVIVA USA, Central Financial Group, City of Ankeny, City of Clive, City of Johnston, Delta Dental, GuideOne Insurance, Homesteaders Life Co., Hubbell Realty Co., KPMG, Kum & Go, and Mediacom.

I have the opportunity to work closely with GuideOne and Hubbell Realty on their pacesetter campaigns. I have been extremely impressed with their employees’ level of engagement and enthusiasm for United Way. It has been encouraging for me to see that they truly understand this year is not a year to let up on investing in our community.

If you know someone who works for one of these companies, please join me in thanking them for stepping up during a year when it would be easy to step down. Also, please stay tuned to this blog for updates on how the pacesetter effort wraps up. Will they get a million in the door before September 4… ?