Late donations up Penn Way total

The campaign got a late start but raised 8 percent more than it did last year. Late donors helped salvage the 1997 Penn's Way campaign, reversing a steady decline in donations that had plagued the University's annual charity drive in recent years. Although the campaign's preliminary figure of $178,500, reported last month, constituted a 22 percent decrease from last year's total of $230,029, a number of donations that "trickled in" after the December 19 official deadline contributed to an overall 8 percent jump from the 1996 figures, Penn's Way coordinator Barbara Murray said. According to this week's final tally, the 1997 campaign raised about $250,000, exceeding last year's total by $20,000 and this year's preliminary figure by $71,500. "This represents a real success story," said Lisa Prasad of the Office of the Executive Vice President . She added that the campaign's late start and "mixed management" raised questions about its ultimate success. Not including the late contributions, the official campaign ran for about three weeks -- five fewer weeks than previous campaigns. Controversy over who would manage the charity drive delayed the launching of the campaign until early December. This year's "side-by-side" management incorporated efforts from campaign partner and co-manager the United Way and the Center for Responsible Funding -- a local organization that supervises the transfer of gifts to its five umbrella organizations. The University outsourced management duties to the United Way last year -- a decision that prompted complaints from employees worried that the national organization would limit their choice of charities. But if the University had hired the Center exclusively for the 1997 campaign, the United Way was threatening to double its administrative fee on any donations earmarked for United Way members. The University finally agreed to allow each organization to run separate campaigns in an effort to "make everyone happy," Murray said. The United Way raised $201,500, which was distributed to about 10,000 affiliated agencies. The Center raised the remaining $48,500 for its five umbrella organizations: the AIDS Fund, the Black United Fund, the Environmental Fund, the Bread and Roses Community Fund and Women's Way.