It is almost a given in most conversations that Ann Jacobs has in her capacity as director of the United Fund of Talbot County (UFTC), she will need to correct someone at least once when they mistakenly call the UFTC the “United Way of Talbot County.” It’s a simple enough mistake, and Jacobs, even after twelve years in her job, never loses patience as she repeatedly points out that the United Fund is an independent and entirely different organization than the better known national program.
In fact, Talbot’s United Fund, which pools resources and volunteers to provide $400,000 to twenty-one Talbot County-based agencies each year, is so local that it was literally created in a duck blind in the 1950s by local philanthropist McKinney Willis and his hunting companions. From those early days to the present, the United Fund has been indispensable in helping such critically important human services organizations like Talbot Mentors, Character Counts, and Upper Shore Aging carry on their mission.
In her Spy interview, Ann talks about the founding of the organization, how it works with its agencies, particularly as they recover from the great recession, and its remarkable return on investment the UFTC offers the community in general.
This video is approximately five minutes in length.
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