Behind the Scenes: A Look at United Way’s Community Impact Partners
We bring them up a lot – our Community Impact Partners. I imagine a lot of people don’t fully understand what that entails, and why they are important to our community. So, here’s a behind the scenes look at what they do and how their work changes our community for the better.
Community Impact Partners drive a fair amount of the work being done by United Way in Larimer County. That means they are the center of our collective impact agenda, which includes things like helping kids be ready for school, keeping kids on track to graduate, helping working families thrive, and meeting basic needs. Only by meeting the needs in these four areas can we break the cycle of poverty and create a brighter future for everyone in Larimer County.
Currently there are over 70 Community Impact Partners from all different sectors of the community, including nonprofit human services agencies, school districts, community organizations, professional associations, volunteer groups, the faith community, government entities, and foundations. These partners are broken down into four different collaborative groups dedicated to working together in new and different ways to address the root causes of poverty in Larimer County. Each
…show more content…
By working together, local organizations no longer need to compete for resources, duplicate efforts, and can come together to address the long-term needs of the community like ensuring kids are prepared to learn and families have the tools they need to remain employed. “It is energizing to work with a group of visionaries who, instead of competing for precious resources, are eager to share and collaborate for the greater good of the people we serve,” stated Stephanie Slayton, Program Manager with Project Self-Sufficiency, a Community Impact Partner focused on helping working families
This evaluation report gives the reflection of the Hennepin County Community Works (HCCW) performance’s for the last 20 years and lessons learned from applying a range of strategies in diverse geographies. This evaluation report covers eight Community Works programs that have been established by board resolution since 1995, Humboldt Community Works, Midtown Community Works, Lowry Avenue Community Works, Bottineau LRT Community Works, Shady Oak Road Community Works, Minnehaha-Hiawatha Community Works, Southwest LRT Community Works, and Penn Avenue Community Works. These programs have substantial and transformative impact such as providing affordable housing, imrpoving health, enabling people to live carless, encouraging social engagement and
Probably one of the most important issues when it comes to Family/Community Partnership is trying to get the families/community involved in what we are doing. By engaging parents, it will help us to see what we are lacking and what we need to do in order to have our families fully engaged. I feel that if our families/communities are not engaged in our program then we need to reevaluate in order to encourage their participation. By reevaluating our program we can further access what we need to work on. If parents/communities feel that they are not valued as part of our team, they won’t engage in our program. Both the parents and the community play a big role in the education of our children. Parents are their first teachers and the communities have valuable resources for the children.
They have worked and consulted in research projects with local governments in Texas and across the nation, non-profit organizations, NGOs, public universities to serve in the interests of public health, safety, housing, education, disaster preparedness, civic engagement. With projects concerning social issues, education, youth services, civic, job readiness, and law enforcement. They have delivered innovative solutions and impactful services to the community through conferences, seminars, transformative programs and workshops.
A stronger sense of community connectedness can address certain quality of life issues within communities, and potentially Osceola County (Boyd & Peters, 2009). Osceola County’s poverty level is higher that both the State of Florida and the county. Osceola’s poverty level is over 20%, where Florida stands at 17%, and the United States at roughly 14% according to the United States Census Bureau. Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) could be an answer to reducing poverty and
Collaboration among organization members and community stakeholders is very important, we must begin to study and understand nonprofits not merely as organizations housed within four walls but as catalysts that work within, and change, entire systems. The most effective of these groups employ a strategy of leverage, using government, business, the public, and other nonprofits as forces for good, helping them deliver even greater social change than they could possibly achieve alone (Crutchfield, 2012). There is also an understanding that community partnerships and assistance from caring individuals will be of a great benefit to the organization and the young men they serve. The different chapters in the organization are funded through member dues, grants and contributions from corporations, foundations, individuals and combined federal
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (EOA) established over 1,000 Community Action Agencies (CAAs) at the local level to implement EOA programs. Indiana Community Action Association, Inc. (IN-CAA) is a statewide not-for-profit membership corporation, incorporated in 1970. Its members or Network is made up of 22 agency partnerships serving all of Indiana’s 92 counties. The goal of this association is to limit or eradicate poverty, so that residents have adequate, secure, and clean living conditions, as well as resources available to help low income individuals achieve self-sufficiency. This state agency serves as a promoter and developer of policy, planning and programs to construct solutions and share responsibility as leaders in the war against
As Edelman had bettered the community by constantly working towards a solution that works for the community, despite any opposition, I will apply a collaborative method in my work. Without collaboration, there will be no ability to come to a solution, especially if there are parties that don’t agree with your ideals. As Edelman had worked through obstacles in Los Angeles, the city of Phnom Penh had done the same. Against all odds and working towards improving the community, Phnom Penh had brought running water to the city. The drive to constantly improve the community will help me to drive myself look for a solution or come to a compromise in various situations, for there is always something to improve on and there is never an end to helping
In my current position I do not have any formal community-based collaborative nor grant administration experience have ever I am every passionate about working to broaden the involvement of people and organizations in addressing community-level problems. One of the most recent issues that I created a community coalition to address in violence in and around the neighborhood of the bowling alley And neighborhood located around our bowling alley was theft and vandalism and violence. I was able to organize the local neighborhood and community together at the alley I did work on many community based collaborative projects in college. For each collaborative we were given we worked through all of the stages formation, implementation, and maintenance.
I believe community involvement is essential in order to cultivate skills, increase awareness and educate people to have a fruitful venture in mind, body and spirit. The cultural diversity, partnerships with public, private and non-profit organizations have been instrumental to our success in this region. Despite the different ideologies and competing viewpoints, I hope to become an agent of
I have been involved with the Sherwood Community Association (SCA) for approximately 6 years. Within the organization, I am responsible for representing the interests of nearly 5000 Sherwood residents, leading the efforts for corporate sponsorship and co-leading a committee that works with municipal and provincial representatives to provide aesthetic upgrades to the community. My impact has helped the SCA develop a footprint within the industry, raise historic levels of funding to better support our constituents and has helped obtain aesthetic upgrades to more than an acre of community land. It has been an incredibly humbling experience to work alongside a group of dedicated individuals to service our community. Through this, I came to understand the value of resilience; I realized that life consists of many obstacles and what makes a great leader is their capacity to learn from failures and use them to come back stronger and more prepared to deal with future challenges.
According to Deborah Bailey, some of the ways these programs are getting funding currently are non-traditional. Funding is coming from the private sector because the public system is not completely on board with these programs at the present time and not as willing to experiment. The article ends speaking about how everyone is effected positively with these programs so far (Bailey p.28). These programs have started the conversation and will help build support for a universal model used by all communities just as the
True community development exemplifies the relationship between the local actor and the interconnectedness that needs to exist to accomplish change.
Theoretically, community needs assessments are a great way to identify gaps within communities and improving the life of individuals within a target group. If there is a collaboration of all three components of the community needs assessment model, Assessment, Dissemination and
Jed Emers is a Senior Adviser at Gary Community Investment Company, Senior Adviser at Blue Haven Initiative and a Chief Impact Strategist at ImpactAssets. He lives at San Francisco California and he studied at St Mary’s College of California for his MBA, University of Denver for his MSW and Lewis and Clark College for his BA, Sociology and Religion. He was given an award at Nautilus 2012 Gold award for Impact Investing: Transforming how we make money while changing the world and twice selected by nonprofit times as one of the sector’s most influential people. He is into social entrepreneurship, strategic planning, community development, management consulting, economic development, strategic communication, policy analysis, venture capital and community outreach to name the few. He is also a member of ESG investing, Stanford social innovation review, SROI Canada,
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “community” as ‘a body of people or things viewed collectively’. The make-up of a community consists of various establishments, including universities and charities. While they both act independently, occasionally the two will form a partnership and work towards a common goal. This can benefit all parties involved if done properly and there is ample and efficient communication. This essay will focus on the argument that there should be more partnerships between universities and local charities. First, there will be an exploration of the Sheffield-based charity Ignite Imaginations and the work they accomplish throughout the city, along with a program based at the University of Sheffield. An analysis