United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania

The goals of the Impact Fund are to help people in Southwestern PA with:

1. Meeting Basic Needs: Connecting people at times of crisis with immediate, essential human needs such as shelter, safety and food.
2. Moving Toward Financial Stability: Creating a path to a more financially secure future with practical tools for working families and individuals so they can overcome short-term instability and provide for themselves and their family long term.
3. Building for Success in School and Life: Addressing disparities in educational opportunities-including disparities that often fall along racial lines--from early childhood through school years to help young people become successful adults.

By promoting equity across race, gender and ability and fostering innovative solutions to age-old problems, United Way’s Impact Fund helps create positive change for those in need.

United Way of Southwestern PA continues to rise to the challenge of helping our vulnerable neighbors meet their basic needs. Every day, United Way:
1. CONVENES community leaders and creates partnerships to identify and tackle tough issues;
2. PROMOTES accountability and transparency from ourselves and all our agency partners, providing measurable results and working tirelessly to advance racial, gender and ability equity;
3. INNOVATES and challenges assumptions on root causes and their solutions, including launching bold programs that can yield large, scalable results;
4. COLLABORATES by bringing together volunteers, donors, partner agencies, and local governments to forge holistic approaches to addressing human needs with high efficiency and minimal redundancy;
5. INVESTS in preventative strategies that help people – before a short-term situation becomes a devastating crisis;
6. ENGAGES and sustains a diverse community of donors and advocates, whose support fuels our efforts and whose voices have the power to shape public opinion and create systemic change; and
7. MOBILIZES a growing number of passionate volunteers throughout our entire region who are integral to implementing solutions and provide an essential human touch to our efforts.

These guiding principles drive United Way’s efforts to bring together corporate, government, and community service agencies to rally during difficult times. We will maintain a sharp focus on issues that will help raise our community back to economic stability such as employment, education, advocating for policies that help our neighbors get back on their feet, and tackling the racial, social and economic inequalities that existed before COVID-19, but have worsened—using these extraordinary times as an opportunity to drive change.

United Way is uniquely prepared to act alongside our century-built network of non-profit agencies, government, volunteers, businesses, individual donors, and foundations to respond to large-scale community challenges and move towards real change. United Way’s Impact Fund allows us to be flexible and move quickly to address our community’s most pressing needs. We work in collaboration with community partners and support innovative advocacy to drive change in the community.

United Way is an effective community fundraiser that brings together individuals and their families, executives and their employees, local leaders and their communities to rise to the challenge of helping our neighbors meet their basic needs in Southwestern PA. Sustainability for United Way of Southwestern PA’s programs, services, and investments is leveraged through the power of 60,000 donors, thousands of volunteers, and more than 700 workplace campaigns. Last year, United Way raised $43 million - $9 million in crisis response – to support our neighbors in Southwestern PA.

By combining resources from individuals, corporate and foundation funders the Impact Fund is our most effective vehicle to partner, problem solve, innovate, and lead in response to the needs of our five-county region. As we move forward, United Way will prioritize resources and energies toward innovative problem solving to address:

1. Meeting Basic Needs: Individuals and families have a greater opportunity to thrive when they have access to nutritious food, a safe place to live, and supportive community resources.
2. Moving Toward Financial Stability: To break the cycle of generational poverty, it is essential that people have resources and supports to earn a living wage and the tools they need to build wealth.
3. Building for Success in School and Life: Every young person deserves the chance to have a positive start toward adulthood, to learn and succeed to the level of their educational ability and reach their full potential in life.

These new Investment Priorities were carefully chosen to support programming to meet the needs of our communities as together we learn how to live in a post-pandemic environment.