Atlanta now in her rear-view mirror, Shannon Cofield looks at it this way: The pendulum shifted perhaps too far when United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta began drilling to the core of systemic problems that keep the noose of poverty around the necks of nearly half of households headed by women, drug dealers in business and almost 60 percent of the population in rental housing.

As the agency attempted to usher in changes, service providers operating in the real world, where clients have pressing needs and emergencies are commonplace, feared their funding would dry up, even though they agreed that the root causes of crushing socioeconomic problems needed to be addressed and couldn’t be solved overnight. Factions emerged. Turfs were defended. Cofield learned from that rift before she moved to Greater Des Moines, where she heads United Way of Central Iowa, which is reinventing itself as a solutions-based agency in much the same way as the Atlanta United Way affiliate.

“We made a lot of mistakes in Atlanta,” said Cofield, who served as the Atlanta United Way’s vice president of resource development and managed its annual $72 million capital campaign. “When you make a lot of mistakes, hopefully you learn from them. Coming into this position, I think my experience in Atlanta will help us head off some mistakes.

“It could have been a more thoughtful, intentional process, but we were so bent on changing our direction that we were not very effective in enrolling the agencies in the process of change.”

Not quite two months on the job, Cofield already senses the same schism as United Way of Central Iowa, like chapters across the country, transforms itself from an umbrella organization that merely distributes funds to more than 100 affiliated agencies to a community leader in advocating and effecting change. “While not resistant to change related to the community-impact direction, there is a bridge that needs to be built between making a case for change and helping people understand more clearly our mission and direction,” she said. “United Way will always play a role in safety-net programs. We’re not going to stop doing that.”

One challenge will be to avoid duplications of service and fill service voids while working to tackle deeply embedded problems. The United Way-funded agencies “are all working on their own outcomes. United Way has its own and schools have their own,” Cofield said. “The biggest challenge is getting to a point where we agree and are all working together to achieve the same result.”

United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta was the first in the United States to change its business model from being an organization that simply funds agencies to one that works to have an impact on tough community problems, but it’s a nationwide trend, Cofield said. She said that when entire segments of those communities lose touch with opportunity due to economic inequities, United Way, which for a century has invested much of its money in personal problem-solving and personal-development programs, has to change its mode of operation. “We must change to develop he ability to alter unhealthy community conditions as well as help individuals in need,” she explained.

“Look at where Meredith Corp. started,” she said. “They started with Better Homes and Gardens years ago, but they now have 170 special-interest publications and 17 subscription publications, but they didn’t stop publishing Better Homes and Gardens.”

Similarly, she said, “our core business is a community-solutions provider. We’re not going to stop doing that to go to the macro level. It takes both, and we have to be realistic about how long it’s going to take to change conditions in the community.”

The Atlanta and Des Moines Metropolitan areas are, of course, radically different in both size and makeup. But comparisons can be drawn by looking at the poorest sections of both metropolitan areas: Fulton and DeKalb counties in Georgia, and a cluster of inner city Des Moines neighborhoods in the 50314 and 50316 ZIP codes where poverty is four times greater than in other parts of Polk County; where the birthrate among 15- to 17-year-olds, the percentage of youths 16-19 who are neither in school nor working, and the percentage of families with children receiving welfare are three times greater than elsewhere in the county; where youths are six times more likely than in other Polk County neighborhoods to be on probation or paroled from prison; where jobs are few, adequate prenatal care and high school diplomas often are lacking, and desperation is high.

The sheer size of the Atlanta metropolitan area makes it difficult for human services agencies to fully embrace the problem, Cofield said. “I love Atlanta, but it feels like a city and less of a community,” she said. “Des Moines can influence the scope of change, put its arms around it.”

One thing United Way of Central Iowa has going for it that Atlanta lacked is Project Destiny. An initiative of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, Project Destiny draws parallels between economic development and quality-of-life issues. It’s unusual in Cofield’s experience for human-services providers to be at the economic development table. She learned of the initiative while conducting Internet research in preparation for her interview for the United Way of Central Iowa presidency.

“I was blown away that a community could come together from all walks of life and include human services and quality of life as a core part of the vision for the community,” she said. “It’s a paradigm change for United Way. The community is saying, ‘This is our agenda.’ United Way didn’t drive that process, but we are a key part of it.

“This gives us a stake in the ground showing where we are and where we need to be,” she said. “It clearly defines the outcomes we need to be focused on.”

One of Cofield’s first official duties as United Way president was to accompany the Greater Des Moines Partnership on its recent lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., to ask for a $5 million congressional earmark to provide universal, nationally accredited child-care options. Early childhood education and school readiness are two areas where United Way of Central Iowa thinks it can have the greatest effect as a catalyst for change. Its other priorities include youth development – increasing graduation rates, for example – and improving economic self-sufficiency.

She also comes to the agency just in time to oversee its annual workplace fund-raising campaign, which will be led by Tom West, vice president of business and community support at Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. Though the workplace campaign doesn’t officially begin until Sept. 15, some businesses that want to increase giving by 15 percent begin the Pacesetter campaign early. The United Way board has set goal of $18.5 million, a 7 percent increase over the $17.2 million raised last year. It’s an ambitious goal, but one that Cofield is confident is within reach, given the past performance of United Way of Central Iowa, especially in years of economic downturn. During the recession that was exacerbated by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, most United Way chapters reported that workplace giving remained flat or dipped below previous levels. Yet United Way of Central Iowa was able to raise $14.7 million in 2001, an increase of 8.1 percent from 2000, and $16.4 million in 2002, an increase of 8.8 percent from the prior year.

But that money is being given by fewer people than in the past, Cofield said. With some 1,700 groups with Internal Revenue Service Chapter 501(c)3 status in Greater Des Moines, including family foundations and organizations that wouldn’t technically be considered charities, competing for philanthropic dollars, the challenge is clear.

“United Way has to get smarter about how to capitalize our market share,” she said. “United Way must sharply differentiate its role and value from that of the competition.”