OUR FOCUS IS SIMPLE:

Advancing the Common Good by Creating Opportunities for a Better Life for All…

Everyone deserves opportunities to have a good life: a quality education that leads to a stable job, enough income to support a family through retirement, and good health.

That’s why United Way’s work is focused on the building blocks for a good life:

• Education – Helping children and youth achieve their potential
• Income – Promoting financial stability and independence
• Health – Improving people’s health

Advancing the common good is less about helping one person at a time and more about changing systems to help us all. (Click here to read the Washington Post article about the United Way of America's Goals for the Common Good Report)

We are all connected and interdependent; we all win when a child succeeds in school, when families are financially stable, when people are healthy. Our goal is to create long-lasting changes by addressing the underlying causes of these problems.

How are we doing this?

By implementing a new business model known as Community Impact. The Community Impact model concentrates on solving specific community issues, strategically distributing resources to demonstrated community needs and making measurable differences in the chosen areas.

Using this approach, we invest donor contributions in three pillars of a strong community:

• Education, the cornerstone of individual and community success. Every teacher knows that school readiness starts long before a child sits in their classroom. Emotional and physical health and strong social skills are critical to every child’s ability to learn.
  
  Focus area: Stopping Child Abuse and Neglect – ensuring the most vulnerable children in our society are physically and emotionally ready to participate in school and life. The goal is to make sure 100% of abused or neglected children benefit from evidence-based programs.
   
• Income, the way forward for families, individuals and the community. As many as one third of working Americans do not earn enough money to meet their basic needs. They are walking a financial tightrope — barely able to get by, with no ability to save for college, a home, or for retirement.
  
  Focus area: Promoting Financial Stability and Independence – helping low-income families and individuals become financially stable by equipping them with knowledge and by requiring the behavioral changes that will ensure their success no matter what the economic climate.
   
• Health, a basic need, it impacts every aspect of a person’s daily life. Whether it is a neighbor without health insurance, a victim of abuse, or someone struggling with mental illness or an addiction, United Ways work to ensure everyone has access to affordable and quality care so they can lead safe, healthy, and rewarding lives.
  
  Focus area: Homeless Outreach and Prevention - The 10-year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness (PTECH) is focused on creating a sustainable answer to the problem. By providing housing first, plus supportive services such as case management, mental health and substance abuse services, and health care, we can help the chronically homeless leave the streets for good.

Success in these three areas – education, income, and health – will help create a stronger San Diego. United Way will adopt additional focus areas as more resources become available.

How is United Way carrying out its Community Impact mission?

Changing community conditions calls for a fresh perspective, additional partners, and ongoing resources. United Way of San Diego County, its staff and volunteer leadership are funding proven, measurable programs that will create long-lasting changes in the community.

The Strategy:

• Focus donor gifts on specific problems
• Collaborate with the best organizations and experts possible to solve, not just manage problems.
• Define success, then measure and track results
• Report back to donors demonstrated success stories and positive outcomes

To manage the Community Impact process, United Way recruited experts and key partners in each of the focus areas to serve on “vision councils.” These councils facilitate a collaborative, community-wide effort to address each area – child abuse, chronic homelessness, financial stability – and determine those organizations to be funded.

Click here to learn more about our work in Stopping Child Abuse and Neglect

Click here to learn more about our work in Promoting Financial Stability and Independence

Click here to learn more about our work in Homeless Outreach and Prevention

How do we measure success?

Click here to visit our Community Impact Dashboard