Endowment Campaign - Honoring Chris Kerrigan

 

After twenty years of service to the organization, longtime leader Chris Kerrigan will step down in April 2019. For those who recall the earlier years of Trident United Way, one of Chris’ accomplishments at the organization was to create and build an endowment fund. Today that endowment stands valued at over $6 million and is used to support staff development and community programming. It is because of Chris’ leadership that Trident United Way has been able to make extraordinary impacts in the ways of improving financial stability, education and health in our community.

Endowment Campaign Chair:
Hugh C. Lane, Jr.,  Chairman, The Bank of South Carolina & Former Chairman, Trident United Way Board of Directors

As of March 21, 2019, together we have raised $68,500 for the Endowment Campaign in Honor of Chris Kerrigan.

 
 

Editoral Celebrating Chris in The Post and Courier  3-21-19

Thank You Chris Kerrigan

 

 

 


 

TRIDENT UNITED WAY PRESIDENT & CEO: CHRISTOPHER KERRIGAN 

 

Christopher Kerrigan became Chief Executive Officer and President of Trident United Way in April 1998 after serving various roles at United Ways in Washington, DC, Asheville and Raleigh. Since assuming his role, Kerrigan has ushered Trident United Way into a new era with changes to a competitive grant process, the establishment of an endowment and a strategy shift towards collective impact.

Under Kerrigan’s leadership, Trident United Way began shifting to a competitive grant process in 2001. TUW adopted an outcome-based funding model which placed a greater importance on strategic planning, evaluation and metrics. Trident United Way switched from a one-year grant cycle to a three-year grant cycle in 2009 to allow programs to focus on providing outcomes-driven services over a longer period of time, rather than application preparation each year.

Trident United Way was also an early adopter of the collective impact model that uses a structured approach of collaboration through government, business, philanthropy, nonprofit organizations and engaged citizens to achieve significant and lasting social change. As a leader of collective impact in the region, TUW serves as the backbone organization in Healthy Tri-County, a multi-sector regional initiative that is comprised of more than 60 formal organizational members, including the two largest hospitals in the region. Healthy Tri-County released the region’s first health improvement plan in October 2018.

As an added benefit to our agency partners as well as companies in the community looking to engage employees through volunteerism, Trident United Way launched its volunteer matching program in January 2017. Kerrigan also oversaw the establishment of Trident United Way’s Day of Caring, the largest single-day volunteer event in the Tri-County that paired more than 5,200 volunteers with 139 agencies and schools to complete 278 projects in 2018.

One of Kerrigan’s most valuable accomplishments during his tenure has been establishing an endowment for Trident United Way. Valued at $5.1 million today, TUW’s endowment supports staff and community programming in addition to cementing the organization’s foundation long after his retirement.

He has been recognized multiple times by the community he serves, including being named on of Charleston Magazine’s “40 Movers and Shapers” in 2015.

Kerrigan has United Way in his blood as his father spent 42 years with United Ways, spending approximately 15 years as the CEO of United Way of Greater Cleveland. His daughter has also show interest in United Way, serving on the Public Policy Committee at United Way Worldwide in Washington, DC.

Chris Kerrigan has a B.A. from St. Michael’s College, in Burlington, Vt. He resides in Mount Pleasant with his wife, Beth, and daughter Mary Katherine. He has two grown children, Sara and Collin, who live in Southern California and Washington, D.C., respectively.