United Way has evolved from its roots as a fundraising organization to a critical community convener that mobilizes local partners, including businesses, community leaders, public officials and community residents, to expand opportunities for people to succeed. We focus on three key building blocks: a quality education that leads to a stable job, enough income to support a family through retirement and good health.
We must work with our community partners. Together, we must tap into people’s aspirations, focus on issues and underlying conditions for change and bring people and organizations together to create collective impact.
United Ways aspire to drive collaborative community change. That means we must ensure a shared community vision and coordinated action across a diverse coalition, along with mutual accountability, sustained effort and measured results. That means working collaboratively on community-wide and community-based strategies that can drive real change. It means bringing people from all walks of life together to work in meaningful ways. We should spark new ways of working, even if we aren’t always in the forefront.
Community partnerships can use the strategies, tips, tools and templates in this toolkit to discuss, plan and chart a path forward to improve education by improving third grade reading proficiency.
United Way Worldwide
United Way is engaged in nearly 1,800 communities across more than 40 countries and territories worldwide. As the largest privately-funded nonprofit in the world, we create solutions that build stronger communities. We're improving education, strengthening financial stability and making communities healthier. But we don't do it alone. Nearly 2.6 million volunteers and 9.6 million donors are engaged with us across the world to advance community-based and community-led solutions.
We bring people and organizations together to do more together than any of us can do on our own. Employers, nonprofits, government, faith organizations, educators, labor, health providers, community leaders, youth and many others partner with us. Together, we tackle some of the world's toughest issues. We're after solutions that create real change. It's not simple, or easy. But we're making progress, and seeing results. For more information about United Way, please visit: http://www.unitedway.org.
Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF®) is devoted to developing a brighter future for millions of children at risk of poor educational, economic, social and health outcomes.
The foundation’s work focuses on strengthening families, building stronger communities and ensuring access to opportunity, because children need all three to succeed. The foundation advances research and solutions to overcome the barriers to success, help communities demonstrate what works and influence decision makers to invest in strategies based on solid evidence. For more information, please visit https://www.aecf.org/work/.