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For Tom Campbell, every dollar raised by the United Way of Greater Greensboro’s annual campaign is the means to help a woman get out of a dangerous relationship or a family find a way out of foreclosure.

Campbell, interim president of Family Service of the Piedmont, is readying his agency’s application for funding, and it seems promising after Thursday’s announcement that the United Way has raised $12.8 million during the 2008-2009 annual campaign.

The amount is $200,000 short of the United Way’s goal in helping agencies such as Campbell’s.

“It always comes down to not knowing exactly what you are going to get because it depends on what they raise,” said Campbell, whose agency got $1.2 million last year — money he says is much needed, especially in the area of mental health.

“We offer the only sliding-fee scale for mental health services” in the county, Campbell said.

Even though the total raised fell short of the goal, the mood was upbeat during Thursday’s announcement before volunteers and staff.

The United Way of America had predicted that campaign results could be down as much as 4.5 percent among the top 100 United Ways. Greensboro is No. 61 on that list.

Greensboro ended up falling 1.5 percent short of its goal, which had been called overly ambitious by some agency leaders.

Although the Tocqueville Society for gifts of $10,000 or more gained 11 new members, some of the companies that had participated no longer exist.

“It was clearly a challenging year,” said Ed Kitchen, campaign chairman and former city manager.

At the same time, the United Way also took on primary responsibility for Operation Greensboro Cares, which raised money for emergency food and shelter.

The winter campaign supported by community agencies, such as the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro and the News & Record, raised $375,000. Local nonprofits say that money prevented more families from losing their homes or having their electricity shut off. Many of the aid recipients had lost a job or had an illness that wiped them out financially.

“These people could be any one of us tomorrow,” said Craig Thomas, executive director of Mary’s House, which got $10,000 from the special campaign to help local families with emergency assistance.

“These are not the chronically poor, these are people we’ve never seen before,” Thomas said.

That money likely siphoned some support from the United Way, but agency President Keith Barsuhn said he’d do it again.

“The end game here is to move the needle on the human condition of our community,”  Barsuhn said.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com