United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania

Community Impact

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United Way Announces $21.8 Million
Investment in Results

On June 17, the United Way Board of Directors approved a community investment plan that awards $11 million in grants of general operating support to 137 community agencies across the region and another $10.8 million in community investments directed towards specific projects and initiatives. The result of a competitive process open to more than 9,000 non-profits throughout the region, this slate of investments is aimed at advancing the United Way Agenda for Community Solutions, as called for by the organizational strategic plan. By delivering on this agenda, United Way is ensuring that donor dollars will be invested in achieving concrete results – through defined, evidence-based strategies for change – that will achieve lasting solutions to a tightly focused set of pressing problems in our region.

Our donors demand, and our community needs, a United Way that maximizes the return on the dollars entrusted to us. United Way undertook a thorough process, incorporating research, statistical analysis, and meetings with hundreds of experts and practitioners, to determine where and how United Way could have the greatest impact on our region.

The priority goals and strategies selected as a result, set forth in the Agenda for Community Solutions, are focused on the root causes of our region’s challenges, rather than the symptoms. They emphasize areas in which United Way has unique strengths and capabilities that add to the value of donor dollars and leverage the value of our relationships with the business and non-profit communities across the region. These priority areas are the Education of our Children, Income for Adults and Families, and the Health of our Seniors. The Agenda also provides that we will continue to provide funding for a safety net of basic services across the region and to invest in capacity-building efforts that will strengthen the nonprofit community as a whole.

To identify the community agencies with whom United Way will partner most effectively to propel the Agenda forward, United Way launched Investing in Results - an open process that gave thousands of human service organizations across the region the opportunity to compete for general operating support. Nearly 550 community agencies submitted more than 2100 applications for funding. Applications were intensely evaluated by experienced United Way staff and more than 70 experts from outside the organization, and were reviewed by our Community Impact Strategy Committee and Executive Committee prior to today’s vote by the full Board of Directors.

The agencies ultimately selected for general operating support are those that demonstrated both that their work is closely aligned to United Way’s Agenda and that they are already achieving concrete, measurable results that advance the Agenda. United Way will now invest in a significantly greater number of organizations than we were able to fund in the past, and to support more of the agencies, programs and initiatives that are addressing needs in counties outside of Philadelphia.

As a consequence of our more focused agenda and of opening up our process to competition from throughout the region, operating support for a number of strong, high-quality organizations that had been funded by United Way for many years will be reduced or eliminated. That an organization is not receiving funding through this process is in no way a comment on the quality of that organization. It is simply the result of a more focused agenda with targeted goals, and specific strategies to achieve those goals, that requires agencies to measure and demonstrate specific outcomes that advance the agenda.

United Way conveyed to all of our previously funded agencies that the 2007-2008 cycle marked the end of the traditional funding model, which allocated United Way funding to the same group of agencies each year. It is with deepest respect and admiration for these organizations, however, that the Board has elected to establish an additional $2.5 million transitional funding pool that will ensure that all previously funded organizations receive at least five months of general operating support in the upcoming fiscal year, either through the new funding stream, transitional funding, or a combination of both. And, of course, any donor desiring to direct his or her gifts to a specific agency may continue to do so through United Way’s Donor Choice program, which generates more than $20 million for the nonprofit community each year.