Throughout United Way of Greater Charlottesville’s 80+ years as an organization, we have never experienced the generosity of our community quite as profoundly as we did during this year’s holiday campaign. From November 2024 to January 2025, community members from throughout our region chose to donate over $735,000 to ensure that their neighbors can not only make ends meet but thrive through United Way programs and services.
This remarkable alignment around support for children and families in our region will:
- Help more of our community’s youngest learners receive the high-quality early education they need to arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed;
- Directly assist hard-working families in their journeys to financial independence; and
- Enable United Way of Greater Charlottesville to continue to identify and meet the needs of our community through coalition-building across sectors, municipalities, and walks of life.
Community Support Despite Declining Rates of Philanthropy
Our region’s collective generosity toward uplifting human services is even more humbling given declining rates of philanthropy and volunteerism on a national level. According to the Generosity Commission (a nonpartisan group of leaders from across the social impact sector), one of the most significant trends reshaping civil society today is a decrease in those who give to, and volunteer with, nonprofit organizations. From 2008 to 2018, the share of U.S. households reporting donations fell from 65% to 49%. The rate of volunteerism, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reached a 20-year low in 2021, at 23%.
Greater Charlottesville, thankfully, is bucking this trend. Not only did support for this year’s holiday campaign surpass our organization’s previous year-to-date fundraising total by nearly 20%– but other traditional community-based fundraising efforts like the Santa Fund for School Kids and Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign exceeded their annual goals this year by 14% and 4%, respectively. Santa Fund’s total, in fact, was the highest ever recorded since its founding in 1894.
What’s more, the 34th annual Day of Caring – United Way’s flagship community event and our region’s largest volunteer effort – hosted more volunteers in September 2024 than any of the previous 5 years. Nearly 1,900 volunteers completing more than 115 projects to benefit schools, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson, and Orange. By forging relationships between organizations addressing diverse community needs and the donors and volunteers who sustain them, Day of Caring is a critical force for increasing engagement with our region’s social impact sector.
Looking Ahead With Optimism
As 2025 continues to unfold, our team at United Way of Greater Charlottesville is filled with an incredible sense of gratitude, a firm understanding of purpose, and a fearless resolve in pursuit of our mission to help ALL families in our community thrive. Thank you for your role in helping us achieve that vision!