June 15, 2000 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Betty Stanley Beene, who has won both praise and criticism in her job as president of United Way of America, will step down within the next 18 months, the organization has announced.
United Way said that Ms. Beene, who became president in January 1997, will depart after she finishes dealing with some “remaining challenges.” Those include helping United Way of America’s board review the organization’s governance structure and its relationship with the 1,400 local United Ways.
The governance effort, Ms. Beene said in an interview, involves figuring out how the United Way of America and the locals “can make decisions together more quickly and hold one another accountable once those decisions are made.”
Ms. Beene, 53, informed United Way’s board at its June meeting of her intention to leave her $310,000-a-year post. She said in the interview that she has no immediate career plans following her departure.
Dimon R. McFerson, chairman of the United Way board and chief executive of the Nationwide insurance company, said in a statement that the board received Ms. Beene’s announcement “with deep regret.”
Under Ms. Beene’s leadership, Mr. McFerson added in an interview, “the United Way system is stronger than ever. We just completed the best campaign in more than a decade. The American public has an awful lot of faith and trust in the United Way across the country, and it has been very generous in its local communities.”
Mr. McFerson also said that Ms. Beene had strengthened United Way’s ties with the National Football League, a 27-year marketing partnership that has helped to increase awareness of United Way.
Still, while Ms. Beene has won praise for helping to rehabilitate United Way after a financial scandal involving former President William Aramony rocked the charity in the early 1990’s, some of her management moves have come under fire.
In recent months, for example, some local United Way officials have reproached Ms. Beene for not ensuring adequate oversight of United Way’s purchase of a $12-million fund-raising software system that was scrapped last year because it didn’t work.
Ms. Beene denied that the ill-fated deal was a factor in her decision to leave. This month, she noted, United Way’s directors allocated an initial $1.7-million for a new pilot project in which 15 local United Ways will use the Internet to help people donate money and volunteer services and to find out about programs that receive United Way support.
If the failed software venture “had immobilized me,” she said, “I wouldn’t have been back to the board this month with a new Internet strategy.”
Like the software deal, the review of United Way’s governance structure could affect Ms. Beene’s legacy as United Way president.
The review entails, in part, figuring out how to balance the interests of local United Ways that vary in size and financial clout, as well as the interests of other United Way constituents, such as corporate and labor leaders. The process also involves the question of how to bring cohesion and uniformity to a national organization while ensuring that local United Ways remain independent.
The review is expected to be completed by the end of the year, after which its conclusions will go to the local United Ways for approval.
United Way officials said that the governance review must be completed before the organization attempts to recruit Ms. Beene’s successor.
