United Way of Greater Portland Announces 2017 Campaign Results

At its annual Campaign Celebration last night, United Way of Greater Portland announced that they anticipate pledges of $8,053,931 against the $8.05 million annual campaign goal. This is the third consecutive year of campaign growth.

“The generosity of our hundreds of corporate partners and over 12,500 donors is inspiring,” said John Chandler, 2017 Campaign Chair and Managing Principal of BerryDunn. “It reflects tremendous passion and dedication to building a thriving community. We are grateful to everyone who made it possible.”

United Way’s annual campaign kicked off September 15 with a rally, food drive and canned-good sculpture contest in Monument Square. The event collected enough food for 16,428 meals and set a record for Cumberland County’s largest one-day food drive.

Throughout the campaign, the Campaign Cabinet, comprised of 30 executive and corporate leaders from every sector of our community, worked closely with United Way staff to generate support from over 200 companies and organizations throughout Greater Portland.

Gorham Savings Bank, Hannaford, L.L.Bean, MaineHealth, Maine Medical Center, MEMIC, Unum, and WEX played an integral role in this year’s success, by loaning ten employees to bolster United Way of Greater Portland’s capacity for nine weeks during the campaign. These Loaned Executives helped run workplace campaigns and informed others about United Way’s impact. Anthem, Berry Dunn, MacPage, Preti Flaherty, and Verrill Dana also sponsored this valuable program.

Campaign highlights include:

• L.L.Bean, Unum, Hannaford, IDEXX, TD Bank, MaineHealth, WEX Inc., BerryDunn, Texas Instruments, Disability RMS, Inc, Gorham Savings Bank, Baker Newman Noyes, Sappi North America, Martin’s Point Health Care, SIGCO, Inc., and Preti Flaherty, LLP collectively contributed more than $4.8 million in corporate and employee giving.
• L.L.Bean alone raised more than $1.36 million for the community, with 35% of their employees donating to the campaign.
• The John T. Gorman Foundation, once again, doubled donor impact with a $150,000 matching grant for Leadership Giving.
• WEX, MEMIC, BerryDunn, Hannaford, and IDEXX saw impressive growth in giving.
• Women United, an affinity group of United Way—with a mission to inspire, educate, and engage women more deeply as positive change agents in support of the advancement of single mothers and their children in Greater Portland—raised over $125,000 from 76 households in its inaugural year.
• Brick & Beam Society, United Way’s emerging leaders group, saw its membership swell to over 50 households.
• There are 75 household members in the Tocqueville Society, United Way’s highest giving level for contributions of $10,000 or more. This group collectively contributed more than $1.3 million.

United Way also announced that Mike Vail, President at Hannaford Supermarkets, will chair the 2018 Campaign.