AT THE HELM

Sue Suter, executive director of the United Way of the Greater Seacoast. Photo:  Michael McCord

Sue Suter still gets the questions that cut to the heart of her mission: What is the United Way of the Greater Seacoast? And what exactly does it do?

While obvious, the questions reflect a vast transformation in the 40-year-old United Way to become more than a middleman distributor of individual and corporate charity donations to the hundreds of nonprofit organizations that provide essential services to tens of thousands of resident throughout the Seacoast region and the state.

"A lot of people don't realize we are doing much more than taking money in and sending money out to local nonprofits," Suter told Seacoast Ventures recently. "We are creating more focused investments and implementing more long-term strategies to encourage community involvement."

The transformation of the organization has been in the works for more than five years, said Suter, who has been at the helm for 11 years. In addition to annual campaign fund raising "" around $4.3 million in 2006 "" the United Way has become more active in developing nonprofit coalitions, mobilizing volunteer efforts through its Volunteer Action Center and has become more involved in public education and policy. She said the organization has already met or exceeded all of the goals set in its most recent master plan "" and two years ahead of schedule.

Suter, who came to the Seacoast region from the United Way national headquarters in Virginia, sat down to talk about the challenges ahead and how the organization is leveraging its resources to create a 21st century "cutting edge" model that has begun to attract national attention.

What are your biggest challenges?

It's really hard work to move the needle. But we are very dogged about it in a very pleasant way. Sometimes it's rocky and hard to explain the changes we are making and the value of their strategic impact. To move that needle (on issues such as work force housing, transportation, health care and substance abuse) you need to reach out to the community. We are consensus driven and we are always working to see if we should be taking these leadership positions.

What's the best part of your job?

We see great things every day between the giving and the initiative work we do. We think every day �How do you want to change the system?' And we see the evolution of the very successful Volunteer Action Center, which last year assisted more than 250 local agencies gain training, acquire donated products and recruit volunteers - or create a single grant application form for the state's four largest funding organizations. We are bringing people together to create a 211 center for health and human services information. A new initiative will create a centralized transportation plan to pool nonprofit resources and needs. We are bringing people to look at root causes and it leads to a bigger bang for the buck.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I've always empowered staff and volunteers. One of our keys is to hire very smart people who are in charge of handling our programs and making collaboration a key component. We surround ourselves with thousands of skilled, dedicated volunteers. We are a relatively small United Way but we're on the cutting edge and known nationally because of the innovative work everyone is doing with programs like our Volunteer Action Center. I love watching the collaboration between our staff and volunteers.

How are you funded?

Most comes from large individual donations and from people who give through payroll deductions and then we get grants for our initiative programs. We've found fund raising has become very appealing to a lot more people because it's a lot more accountable.

What about a new building for your headquarters?

We need a long-term solution but we've had flat capital raising the past few years and it wouldn't have been appropriate to focus on a new building. We're more focused on how to build relationships with retiring baby boomers.