Challenge Grants Highlight TAUW
Individuals and small businesses are being challenged to help the Tulsa Area United Way reach its 2011 campaign goal of $24,556,573 by a variety of challenge grants offered by local foundations and companies. This year’s fundraising campaign runs through Nov. 10.
The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation, in conjunction with another anonymous donor, has announced a Leadership Challenge Grant of $250,000 to , promising to match all new and increased gifts by individuals of $500 or more during the annual campaign, which concludes Nov. 10.
QuikTrip has issued a Small Business Challenge of $100,000, matching dollar-for-dollar all first-time gifts by small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
In addition, T.D. Williamson has agreed to contribute an additional $50,000 to the campaign if 15 or more members of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society, a distinguished group of donors, increase their level of giving to $15,000 or more.
“These generous foundations and corporate citizens will allow us to significantly leverage the contributions for our supporters,” says Mark R. Graham, president and . “The challenge grants will allow those who give to the Tulsa Area United Way an opportunity to increase the size and impact of their gifts.”
T.D. Williamson also served as one of TAUW’s Trailblazer companies this year, conducting an early United Way campaign. The company announced total employee giving of $285,528, reflecting the largest campaign increase of all Trailblazer companies.
The $24.5 million goal for this year’s campaign was established earlier this year after nearly 150 volunteers invested five months and 8,000 hours carefully examining the community’s most pressing needs, Graham says.
In its 87-year history, has raised and invested more than $593 million in the Tulsa area. has earned a four-star rating in organizational efficiency by Charity Navigator for operating expenses of 9.37 percent, placing it in the top three percent of the most efficient United Ways in the U.S.
provides services to hundreds of thousands of people annually through its 61 partner agencies in Creek, Okmulgee, Osage, Rogers, Wagoner and Tulsa counties, focusing on the three building blocks to a better life: education, financial stability, health and safety.
The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation is a broad-based funding foundation located in Tulsa with areas of emphasis on Jewish causes, the indigent, the disenfranchised and the homeless.
For more information, or to support this year’s campaign, call 918-583-7171 or visit www.tauw.org.
Updated 10-22-2011
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