The Big Hand

Into the third-floor offices of the United Appeals campaign in Newark, N.J. every week walks a slight, elderly Negro woman. There she plunks down a dollar--sometimes four--and walks out again. Long ago, she "had the sickness," she explained one time, and some of the United Appeals agencies helped her out; she figured that part of her earnings as a houseworker should deservedly go back into the kitty. Her total contributions this year: $72.

Into the offices of Detroit's United Foundation, a representative of the Ford Motor Co. brings its share: $550,000. From nearly all of Ford's 87,700 employees in metropolitan Detroit comes another sum: $1,600,000. The telling fact: in 1956, as in 1955, Detroit's big corporations contributed about 31% of the city's United Foundation total of $16,201,540; yet, the employees in Detroit's industries equaled their 1955 percentage (57.6%), despite unemployment in the automotive business.

Beyond City Limits. Between the hard-won dollar from the woman in Newark and the resounding windfall in Detroit, the story was the same: some 2,000 communities in the U.S. last week were winding up their annual Community Chest and United Fund campaigns, which this year will top 1955's record of $340 million. The results attest to the resounding success of large-scale, organized giving, in which a single-fund appeal raises more money than was once raised for charity by a score of individual appeals.* Moreover, this new organizational know-how has brought millions of Americans into the $72 billion charity "industry" that was once the private domain of the wealthy.

The 1956 outpouring, say united community fund-raisers, is not merely a sign that U.S. givers are better heeled this year, but, more importantly, that they are more civic-minded. The spirit has even overwhelmed interurban bickerings. For example, in "The Heart of America" United Campaign, the Kansas City metropolitan area appeal stretches across the state line from Missouri into Kansas City, Kans., embraces all or parts of five counties in one "united-response" drive. Per capita contributions from 800,000 people: $5.88.

Unexpected Dividends. Once business, labor and other community leaders are organized for fund raising, their combined brainpower frequently pays unexpected dividends in civic improvements. In Seattle the "United Good Neighbor" appeal led to successful campaigning for bond issues for a new civic center, school improvements, a new main library.

Says Boeing Airplane Co. President William M. Allen, National Chairman of the United Community Campaigns of America : "It's not something you can put your finger on. Wherever there's a situation which leads a community to focus on one objective and makes it work together to achieve it, you can't help but score a gain in community spirit. If Seattle is now doing its job for libraries and civic centers and other aspects of a dynamic city, it's in a large measure because it has learned to do it for children's homes and family agencies and clinics."

*Only 16 cities with a population of 25,000 or more still spurn the single, annual, city-wide Community Chest or United Fund type of appeal. Chief among them: New York, with five major federated charity drives each year.

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