United Way of the Great Salt Lake Area elected 17 new board members and an executive committee during its annual meeting Friday morning.
Steven D. Kohlert, Intermountain Health Care senior vice president, will serve as chairman of the 38-member board of directors for 1992-93. He succeeds Patricia A. Richards, senior vice president of First Security Bank.Kohlert was chairman of the 1991 fund campaign, which raised $6 million, an increase of 1 percent over the previous campaign.
Citizen review panels helped the United Way distribute more than $4 million to 145 local nonprofit health and human service programs in areas of youth, self-sufficiency and child care, health care and safety, homeless and basic needs, abused and neglected, individual and family counseling, services to the elderly and the general public, substance abuse treatment and prevention and services for people with disabilities.
"Catch the Vision," the agency's 1991 annual report, was released at the meeting. Among the agency's accomplishments for 1991:
- The planned giving committee raised more than $50,000 to benefit its endowment fund.
- United Way developed initial goals for a strategic plan to meet future human service needs.
- Citizens donated 7,000 hours participating on review and allocation panels.
- The agency gave $42,325 to 14 agencies (some of them non-member agencies) for emergency and special needs.
- It also expanded critical services in 20 agencies, created programs for four more and gave one non-member agency seed money.
Assisting Kohlert on the executive committee are David E. Dahle, Northwest Pipeline Corp.; Phyllis C. Safman, Division of Community Education at the University of Utah; Kenneth E. Louder, FFKR Architects/Planners II; Michael J. Fischer, IBM; Maun Alston, Family Support Center; Linda M. Kruse, Blue Cross/Blue Shield; and Ed Mayne, Utah AFL-CIO.
Retiring members were honored during the meeting, as were the volunteers who donated more than 52,000 hour to United Way efforts in 1991.
The 1991 fund-raising campaign brought in 1 percent more money than the year before, but many programs actually received less money, with cuts ranging from 0.5 percent to 62.5 percent (The Reading Room for the Blind).
The United Way annual allocation report blamed low rates of return on investments, an increase in designations to nonmember agencies and more uncollectable pledges. Because of those factors, 12 of the 13 panels had 2.5 percent fewer dollars to allocate.
Eight programs received increases: Boys and Girls Club of Murray, Camp Kostopulos, Catholic Community Services pregnancy counseling, Family Support Center, Guadalupe Educational's preschool program, Indian Walk-In Center, Salt Lake Neighborhood Housing and Travelers Aid Society.
Funding for 27 agencies remained flat and 47 agencies took cuts. Six new programs were admitted, the YWCA camping services program was defunded and two programs were recommended for a "phaseout" of funding.
Venture grants were not funded this year and emergency and special-needs funding was cut from $60,000 to $42,334. Allocation panels based their decisions on on-site visits, information packets and interviews. Allocations can be appealed.