Q & A with Upic’s President
Upic CEO's United Way career started in 1982, as a UWA management trainee. Winston Faircloth shares why he helped start Upic in 2000 and what drives the organization today.
Q. How did Upic begin?
A. We trace our origins to a great partnership and a fortunate set of events. In the late 90's, I was the exec in Lexington, KY (Metro 2). At the time, our staffing was heavily weighted to internal administration versus community-facing activities. We wanted to have the same capabilities as larger UW's, but we also didn't want to raise our costs. Fortunately, our sister UW in Cincinnati had excess capacity and we began a staged process of moving responsibility for pledge processing, IT support and finally accounting support to them. That process gained the attention of Columbus who was on the same journey of trying to increase capacity and lowering costs. The leadership of Cincinnati & Columbus funded a feasibility study which resulted in a separate shared-service organization, Upic, which we founded in March 2001.
Q. What are the benefits of shared services?
A. Many of our members are seeking increased capabilities, realignment of resources, and cost savings. A shared services organization delivers significant results in all three areas, depending upon the size of the member and the services selected. For example, we have programmers on our staff and their time is shared among several UW members, effectively reducing the costs for each UW. Most members see a gain in internal capacity, cost savings or a blend of both.
Q. How is Upic different from others who have tried to serve UW's?
A. Our neutrality, and our depth of United Way experience. We are not a larger UW organization trying to sell services to neighbors. We're a completely separate organization with the perspective of large and small, donor choice and community-focused models. The diversity of our governing members ensures the services we offer will resonate with a broad cross-section of United Ways. We're also not a for-profit entity trying to crack the UW market. Upic is wholly-owned by several UW's as a non-profit cooperative. The variations between UW's are significant enough that it takes a skilled organization to bridge the unique needs of our members into a cost effective solution, delivered in large part by large scale, third party providers.
Q. While you were in UW you were often quoted in saying "take my pledge processing please". Now it's your full time role. How do you explain that?
A. I believe most execs wake up each morning thinking about how they will make a difference in their communities. Internal administrative excellence demands focus and attention as well. For me, I ended up sacrificing my personal drive and mission on serving the community to those internal demands all too often. If Upic can help one more UW leader focus more of their time on mission, then we're a success.
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