Beckford wraps up more than 23 years at local United Way helm
By MARK MILLER
On Pamela Beckford’s first day on the job in October 1999, she wasn’t sure exactly how to start.
“There wasn’t anyone here, it was just me,” she says. And it was in the middle of the annual campaign. “Ouch,” she remembers thinking.
Twenty-three years later, “she is leaving big shoes to fill,” says current United Way of Wells County board chairman Doug Brown. “Her fingerprints can be found all over this community.”
Having turned 65 and realizing that “it’s time for my family to get the best of me rather than what’s just left over,” Beckford is retiring from her position as the executive director of the local United Way. While today is technically her last day on the job, if you call the United Way office much after noon, you’ll likely miss her.
“I told Doug I was going to leave early,” she said and then chuckled. “What are they going to do, fire me?”
As any business or organization that has experienced the impact of the millennium, 9/11, a major recession, the exponential growth of the internet and, of course, COVID-19, Beckford has seen a number of changes.
“Vast changes,” she will tell you. “Just vast.”
The changes that United Way organizations here and across the country have seen have been arguably more than most.
First, there is the basic mission.
“We used to just raise the money and then allocate it to a number of agencies,” she notes. “We didn’t really make any direct community impact.” That model changed rather rapidly in the mid-2000s.
“I read once that if you try to be all things to all people, you’re really nothing to nobody,” she says. “We used to try that, but discovered we cannot.”
Beckford examined her community and determined that the most critical issue was early childhood development.
“It started with the Imagination Library. That was our first program that we — our local United Way — initiated and it was focused on our children,” she continues. That effort was well received by the community and continues to garner strong support. “Kindergarten Countdown” was soon added to identify and help young children who needed assistance preparing for kindergarten.
It was COVID-19 that triggered the development of the newest effort. “Bookends” is an adaptation of the Kindergarten Countdown program that gives schools more flexibility and gives those children in need of assistance more personal attention.
“It’s actually worked out to be better than Kindergarten Countdown, I think,” Beckford shares.
“So today, we obviously have to raise the money and we still allocate it, but we allocate it to a very narrow focus — primarily these early childhood issues,” she says. “And I think we’re making a difference.”
And raising that money is another major change.
“There was a formula 23 years ago,” she shares. “There was an annual campaign, we had a campaign chairperson who recruited division leaders who recruited solicitors.” It worked, until it didn’t.
There were a number of reasons, she muses. “We simply ran out of people to be campaign chair, and the formula became kind of ‘stale.’” Wells County was not unique to the forces of time; every other local United Way was experiencing the same issues.
Today, it is in many ways an “evergreen campaign — year ’round,” she says. Annual efforts to line up payroll withholding at local companies still happens, only to a smaller degree. When Franklin Electric departed Bluffton, funding for about one-fourth of the annual budget went with them.
Beckford cites Valero Renewable Energy as United Way’s current “No. 1” contributor through their employees and corporate gifts. She has found it increasingly more difficult to get into companies’ schedules to make presentations, due in part to corporate restrictions and/or executives inability to find the time.
“They’re stretched thin, too. I get it,” she says.
A third area of major change has been the United Way organization itself. “The network,” as she describes it.
Beckford is easily the “dean” of the Northeast Indiana United Way Consortium, a loosely-organized group of executive directors in this corner of the state. “I’ve seen 79 directors come and go since I started, and there are six or seven changes this year, including myself.”
On the national level, Beckford was elected last year to serve on the world-wide Network Advisory Council, one of 30 directors charged with “tackling how things are changing and the future of the United Way,” she says.
———
Suzanne Huffman, retired executive director of the Wells County Chamber of Commerce, gives Beckford the bulk of the credit for establishing the Wells County Leadership Academy.
“(The idea) had been on the back burner for years at the chamber,” she told the News-Banner. “But it took Pamela’s tenacity and leadership to get us organized and moving forward.” Huffman and Beckford, along with Wells County Foundation executive director Tammy Slater joined forces to make the academy a reality. Slater refers to a long-standing history of collaboration between the United Way and the foundation, noting that Beckford “has strengthened that relationship.
“One of the most fruitful programs to develop from this collaborative spirit is the Wells County Leadership Academy,” Slater said. “The program continues to flourish.”
Beckford pauses when the leadership academy is mentioned.
“Well, I think we recognized a need, and look where it is today,” she smiles. “Way beyond what I dreamt it might be.”
She is, perhaps, most proud of her early childhood programs. Part of that has been encouraging and leading local pre-school programs to become certified as a “Paths to Quality” Level 3 facility.
“So much of state funding is tied to that,” she says. “We used to not have any and then I was excited to have two programs, and now Southern Wells is working to have their program qualify.” That effort with Southern Wells is something she’s been working towards for four years “and now I won’t be here when it happens,” she adds. “But that’s OK.”
———
What’s next in retirement?
“Nothing,” Beckford replies. She is looking forward to staying at home. For now.
“I have had some inquiries already about doing some consulting with other United Ways, and I could see perhaps filling in as an interim director if a chapter would need some help while they hire someone,” she continues. “But not now. Maybe later.”
She looks forward to more time with her family: Warren, her significant other for more than 25 years; there is “a daughter and step-kids, grandchildren and great-grandkids,” she says. “One granddaughter has three little ones in Tampa, so now I will have the time and a good reason to go to Florida.”
Looking back, Beckford reflects on “a lot of board chairs, a lot of volunteers. I’ve been blessed, and it’s been fun to get to know so many people in this community. This job just kind of grabbed ahold of me.”
miller@news-banner.com
