"You have to test it," she said, describing the risk-management procedures her organization has put into place. "You may have an exposure that you may not have thought about."
All together, there are about 1,400 regional United Way agencies, such as the National Capital Area United Way, the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and the United Way of Camden County. Each does its own fund-raising and is governed by a local board of directors.
Thursday's resignation of Norman O. Taylor came as the board of directors of the National Capital Area United Way voted to cut the charity's staff and budget and change the way it operates.
Taylor had been on the job only since February 2001, but the agency has been stung by accusations of fiscal mismanagement.
Many of its donors - including the Washington Redskins and ExxonMobil - have lost confidence in the charity since disclosures of questionable accounting practices. Both organizations had traditionally played major roles in marketing and promotion, but they opted out of this year's local campaign.
The Washington United Way is under the scrutiny of a federal grand jury, the Department of Labor, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), after a string of disclosures of questionable accounting practices, including inflating its donation totals and withholding more than $1 million it had collected on behalf of area charities.
Yesterday, the United Way of Camden County launched its considerably more modest annual workplace campaign to raise $4.5 million - not a happy coincidence from president Michael Moynihan's point of view.
"The first thing we did was to freak out and get really mad," Moynihan said.
