Community Impact
Read the Washington Post article on State of Common Good Announcement by United Way of America
What is Community Impact?
In response to donor desires to know more about the impact their donations have, and the changing needs of our community, United Way of San Diego County has joined other United Ways from across the nation in implementing a business model called Community Impact.
The Community Impact model concentrates on solving specific community issues. The goal of this focused approach is to strategically distribute United Way resources to demonstrated community needs and to make a measurable difference in these critical areas.
United Way has chosen three focus areas in which to invest donor contributions:
- Stopping Child Abuse and Neglect
- Promoting Financial Stability and Independence
- Homeless Outreach and Prevention
How is United Way carrying out its Community Impact mission?
Changing community conditions calls for a new approach, as well as additional partners and resources. United Way of San Diego County, its staff and volunteer leadership are fully committed to Community Impact as the way to achieve this. United Way will focus its resources on funding specific, measurable and long-lasting positive changes in the community.
The Strategy
United Way of San Diego County has studied what issues really matter to people and through its Community impact is:
- Focusing donor gifts on specific problems
- Collaborating with the best organizations and people possible to solve, not just manage problems
- Defining program accountability and tracking results
United Way is partnering with businesses, agencies, foundations, experts on the issues and the public sector to solve problems at the level of root cause, rather than just managing the effects and symptoms of the problem. Strategies will be developed around specific desired outcomes and will include measurable outcomes that can be tracked.
To manage the Community Impact process, United Way has recruited experts and key partners in each of the focus areas to come together as vision councils. The vision councils are facilitating a collaborative community-wide effort to address each focus area. Each vision council is following an aggressive timeline that includes a strategic process to develop specific, measurable outcomes. This process will ensure that United Way’s resources are allocated to create the greatest impact in the community.
United Way will adopt additional focus areas as more resources become available, as well as increase the scope of outcomes funded in each of the initial three focus areas as resources allow.
