The United Way of Greater Rochester is setting a more ambitious goal for its latest campaign. The $25 million goal is the first time in nearly a decade that the organization has increased its campaign goal over the previous year’s goal. Last year’s campaign had a goal of $24 million, and $24.3 million was raised.
Paychex CEO Marty Mucci is chair of this year’s campaign. And he’s optimistic about reaching the goal for a number of reasons.
“I think there’s a lot of community support for the initiatives that are underway like anti-poverty, I think he United Way has great momentum right now, and we’re really feeling in the community that while the economy is better, not great, that there’s a lot of support for this,” Mucci told WXXI News.
The local United Way no longer depends on the ‘big three’ companies in Rochester to fund the bulk of donations, since those companies have gotten smaller. But Mucci says other businesses are stepping up to the plate.
“We have tremendous support from small business and mid-sized businesses who are running sometimes, their first campaigns, increasing the existing campaigns, and there’s some big business support like Paychex as well, doubling our support to the community fund this year.”
Mucci is challenging the community to “double down.” Paychex is doing that and increasing its gift to $200,000 this year, and they issued a challenge to help match some gifts to the United Way Community Fund.
