For full-time faculty and staff wishing to make an impact close to home, the annual NYU Combined Campaign is back.

This week marks the campaign's 27th year aiding community-based organizations; it has raised and distributed more than $2.3 million since its founding in 1982.

The program splits donations between the United Way of New York City, which supports the five boroughs' nonprofit organizations, and the NYU Community Fund, which targets associations in areas surrounding NYU's campus.

CAS and Wagner alumna Alison Smith, an associate research scientist at the Student Health Center, is among the NYU employees who donate to the fund. She has worked for five years in the university's Office of Community Service, which administers the Combined Campaign.

"I long knew that if I had the opportunity to become an NYU employee, the Community Fund would be on the top of my list of programs in which I would participate," Smith said.

Smith said she donates to the campaign because she wants to give back to NYU and the community.

"I believe it is the right thing to do," she said, "and I have seen firsthand how hard the funded agencies work, year after year, and even more so with the economic struggles they currently face."

Bill Pfeiffer, director of the Combined Campaign, said the United Way of New York City and the NYU Community Fund are involved with many different populations and programming areas, including the arts, education, children and youth, elderly, health care and homelessness.

"The Campaign is also an opportunity for both donors and non-donors to learn more about the rich landscape of nonprofits in lower Manhattan and the myriad innovative services they offer," said Pfeiffer, who is also the director of NYU's Office of Civic Engagement.

He added: "Not only is it a collective recognition of the need in our communities, but it's also a way to help address those needs. Now celebrating its 27th year, it is most certainly an expression of the university's motto, 'a private university in the public service.' "