Community Impact
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United Way Programs & Initiatives
Our work is focused in three areas:
- Preparing Children To Achieve in School and Life
- Building Financial Stability and Independence for Families
- Keeping Seniors Healthy and Safe at Home
PREPARING CHILDREN TO ACHIEVE IN SCHOOL AND LIFE
The Issue: Children who have not kept pace with their peers at the time they enter kindergarten or at key points during their school careers are likely to fall further and further behind. They face diminished prospects for success in school and throughout their lives.
The United Way Response: Investing in school success is the most effective way to make a difference for our children, families, neighborhoods, and the economic viability of our region. United Way is committed to dramatically increasing the number of young children in our region whose early experiences prepare them for school, and to promoting supports for school-age children and youth in staying and getting back on track.
United Way focuses on preparing our youngest children for school and fostering achievement among school-aged children and youth by building better early childhood, afterschool, and mentoring programs that serve thousands of area children.
HIGH-QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
United Way’s Success by Six initiative brings research-based methods of quality improvement to early childhood centers serving more than 2500 young children. Forty-two percent of Success by Six centers have already earned accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children – a rate of accreditation four times the national average. Another Success by Six innovation is to match school readiness specialists with primary care physicians to promote the early identification of developmental problems and provide on site consultations to parents on how to access help. These specialists assist more than 14,000 families each year.
AFTER-SCHOOL OPPORTUNITIES
- The Center for Youth Development (CYD) at United Way works to improve
the quality of more than 300 afterschool and summer programs through customized
staff training and targeted, practical assistance. CYD’s innovative
approach reaches beyond the programs themselves to strengthen the capacity
of neighborhoods
to better support their youth. More than 600 participants attend an annual
conference co-sponsored by CYD to inspire community action for and by young
people
- Mentoring relationships with caring adults matter to young people. In addition to directly supporting a network of mentoring programs that serve nearly 5,000 young people each year, United Way’s Campaign for Mentors advises more than 85 additional mentoring programs, trains mentors and program leaders, and recruits volunteers.
BUILDING FINANCIAL STABILITY AND INDEPENDENCE FOR ADULTS AND FAMILIES
The Issue: Thousands of individuals in our region are not equipped with the tools they need to achieve self-sufficiency. They and their families face lives of economic deprivation and dependency.
The United Way Response: Untied Way is leading community efforts to prepare young people and adults to acquire job skills, secure gainful employment and build assets for the future.
Hundreds of thousands of individuals and families in southeastern Pennsylvania struggle with financial, physical, social, and other barriers to this goal. United Way has an impact through initiatives that give people the tools they need to build a better life for themselves and their families and assist seniors and disabled individuals to live as independently as possible.
SAVING FOR A BETTER FUTURE
United Way’s Home Savings Plus Individual Development Account (IDA) program adds $2 to every $1 saved by program participants, until a total of up to $6,000 has been banked towards a down payment on a home. The program helps participants succeed as homeowners by providing financial counseling and education in addition to multiplying their savings. Open to low-income working individuals, the program is a collaboration among United Way, financial institutions, nonprofit agencies, and the federal government.
LIFTING WORKING FAMILIES OUT OF POVERTY
By reducing tax burdens and supplementing wages for low-income working families, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) helps people leave the welfare rolls and lifts families out of poverty. As a partner in the Campaign for Working Families, United Way recruited hundreds of volunteers who, trained in tax preparation and the EITC, provided free tax assistance that netted nearly $20 million for 11,000 families in 2006.
OPENING A DIGITAL DOOR TO PARTICIPATION IN TODAY’S ECONOMY
For many low-income families, access to technology and the knowledge of how to use it are increasingly indispensable --but still out of reach-- tools for economic success. United Way’s Teaming for Technology Digital Inclusion Program is providing the computers, internet access, training, and technical support needed to increase technological literacy and access in two low-income communities in West Philadelphia. The program, a corporate-nonprofit partnership, has already reached more than 300 families.
A PLACE TO TURN
Each month, more than 9,000 southeastern Pennsylvanians contact First Call for Help for free and confidential information and referrals to social service agencies and providers. The bilingual First Call for Help staff also provides valuable feedback to social service agencies to help improve the quality of services. First Call for Help is a community service partnership between United Way and the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO.
KEEPING SENIORS HEALTHY AND SAFE AT HOME
The Issue: Seniors overwhelmingly report a strong desire to remain at home, but isolation and lack of access to needed services are placing many older southeastern Pennsylvanians at risk.
The United Way Response: United Way is building and supporting high-quality community support networks and developing innovative approaches to keeping seniors independent for as long as possible.
- High-quality senior centers enhance seniors’ quality of life and
support them in remaining in their own communities. The United Way Senior
Center Accreditation Project boosts the quality of senior centers by
assisting them to meet standards for accreditation set by the National Institute
of Senior Centers. Nine of the eleven Pennsylvania senior centers to achieve
accreditation as of January 2006 were part of the United Way network, and
an additional eight United Way agency centers are expected to achieve accreditation
by the spring of 2006.
- United Way joined with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, Catholic Human Services, and Mellon Mid-Atlantic Charitable Trusts to initiate the Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC) Supportive Services Project. This innovative project coordinates the delivery of social services to seniors living in their own homes in a section of Northeast Philadelphia with a high percentage of older residents. The resulting concentration of existing services and addition of new resources specifically designed to meet the particular needs of the NORC residents is expected to extend the ability of approximately 400 seniors to remain in their homes.
STRENGTHENING NEIGHBORHOODS AND COMMUNITIES
The Issue: It is difficult for children and families to move ahead when their neighborhoods are falling behind.
United Way’s original and well-designed collaborative projects impact targeted neighborhoods and produce valuable lessons for broader application.
INNOVATING TO SUPPORT LASTING CHANGE
The federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) program is generating significant economic development in the North Central and American Street neighborhoods in Philadelphia. To sustain the benefits of this progress, the Philadelphia Neighborhood Transformation Initiative and United Way have entered into a one-of-a-kind partnership to create the Neighborhood Funding Stream, a $10 million dollar endowment seeded by the repayment of loans to community agencies and small businesses in the EZ neighborhoods. Managed by United Way with the active participation of community volunteers, in 2005 the Neighborhood Funding Stream distributed its first $350,000 in grants to support sustainable community development.
CLIMBING HIGHER, CLIMBING TOGETHER
A unique partnership formed by United Way, the Philadelphia Neighborhood Transformation Initiative and its Empowerment Zone program, community development organizations, and local research institutions has launched the Equitable Community Development project. This project is identifying strategies to ensure that long-time residents and businesses share in the benefits when a neighborhood improves. Lessons learned through this project will contribute to a citywide equitable development strategy.
VOLUNTEERISM MATTERS!
The Issue: Volunteerism is a key element of United Way’s community impact strategy.
Because United Way is actively involved with social service agencies, in workplaces, and throughout the community, we know where volunteers are needed most and are able to recruit, train, and deploy them to make real contributions to those in need. Rewarding volunteering experiences build a culture of civic engagement that is a cornerstone of a healthy community.
RELIEF FOR WORKING FAMILIES
United Way and its partners are working to get dollars into the hands of working families that can be put towards savings goals, by increasing the number of households filing for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and other tax credits and refunds they have earned. United Way is a program partner of The Campaign for Working Families and one of its funders. The Campaign for Working Families secured more than $20 million in refunds for 13,500 households last year. Go to www.phillyfreetaxes.org.
DAYS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE
- During the annual Greater Philadelphia Martin
Luther King Jr. Day of Service, families, students, community groups and other Delaware Valley
residents
honor Dr. King by taking on hundreds of hands-on projects in schools and
neighborhoods. United Way mobilized a total of nearly 75,000 volunteers for
the 2005 and 2006
Days of Service.
- Each year on its Days of Caring, United Way brings teams of corporate employees into the community to provide a surge of much-needed help to local non-profits and the people they serve. During the 2005 Days of Caring, 2500 volunteers from 51 companies tackled 100 projects across southeastern Pennsylvania.
RISING TO THE OCCASION
- United Way partnered with the City of Philadelphia on Project Brotherly
Love to host Hurricane Katrina evacuees from the Gulf Coast. In the days
following the storm, United Way fielded thousands of calls from people in
our region
looking for ways to help. United Way trained and deployed more than 600
local volunteers to assist the 1,500 evacuees who arrived in Philadelphia.
- In response to a sudden and dramatic increase in winter home heating costs, United Way established Project Warm Heart to recruit and train volunteers to weatherize the homes of low-income seniors and the homebound. United Way also trained social service agencies on how to assist their clients through the home heating crisis and distributed donated weatherization supplies through nonprofit organizations and state legislators’ offices.
MATCHING VOLUNTEERS WITH THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY TO HELP
- Through United Way’s free interactive web site Volunteer
Way, community-based organizations recruiting volunteers
and individuals and groups in search of volunteer opportunities find each
other.
Each month Volunteer Way averages 10,000 visitors.
- United Way is a cofounder of Coming of Age, an innovative partnership with the Temple University Center for Generational Learning, WHYY, and the American Association of Retired Persons. Coming of Age recruits volunteers aged 50 and older and advises nonprofit organizations on making the most of older volunteers’ experience and knowledge.
