Valley of the Sun United Way (VSUW) works with key partners to help break the cycle of poverty by focusing on education, homelessness, hunger, financial stability, and community empowerment. Goals within these areas of focus include: -Ensure children are ready for kindergarten -Ensure children are reading at grade level by the end of third grade -Ensure students can successfully graduate high school and be college and career ready -Connect individuals who have experienced long-term homelessness with permanent supportive housing and on-site support -Connect families at risk of homelessness with resources to provide ongoing stability -Ensure students in need have access to regular, healthy meals throughout the school year -Ensure families in need have access to emergency food resources -Help individuals and families in low-income households achieve financial stability -Co-create solutions with targeted communities to improve conditions, so individuals and families can thrive and grow

VSUW employs many strategies, such as: Education: improving child care by training educators and parents; providing early grade literacy support; embedding literacy activities in summer youth programs; and creating a robust cradle to career pipeline so students succeed in school and life. Homelessness: supporting emergency shelter and diversion efforts; providing housing stability and support to families; providing permanent supportive housing to those experiencing chronic homelessness; and providing events to connect individuals to vital resources. Hunger: supporting emergency food efforts; providing support to schools to run breakfast programs and provide weekend meals to students in need. Financial Stability: providing financial coach training to individuals working with clients struggling with poverty. Community Empowerment: working with communities on solutions that best fit their needs, like school beautification projects, food literacy workshops, and community gardens.

VSUW has a talented pool of experts in early childhood education, youth development, financial stability, and hunger and homeless services. These experts lead “Community Impact" staff teams that collaborate with partner agencies and initiate and direct VSUW-driven programs to serve the health and human service needs of people across the region.

VSUW's strength is in its collaborative approach. By working in collaboration with more than 400 local organizations, 5,000 volunteers, and tens of thousands of individual donors, VSUW is able to make tremendous strides in its efforts to break the cycle of poverty for our most vulnerable neighbors.

VSUW uses several methods to track our organization progress. Internally, we have a cross-functional operations team that monitors key organizational progress on revenue, volunteerism, and community impact. We also have a governance structure made up of external representatives that monitors progress in the same key areas. As community impact is tied directly to the mission, we have dashboards to monitor quarterly progress against goals related to breaking the cycle of poverty through investment and initiatives that improve school readiness, increase academic performance for school-aged children, increase financial stability of families, reduce homelessness, and reduce food security. In addition, we have a lens of focusing on specific neighborhoods and measuring progress of community engagement in task forces to implement community-created action plans to break the cycle of poverty; these neighborhoods are Maryvale, Central City, and Guadalupe.

VSUW’s recent accomplishments include: 1- Approximately 12,000 School Readiness Kits distributed to parents and caregivers to prepare children for success in school. 2- More than 1,000 school-age youth participated in academic reinforcing activities in summer programs. 3- More than 1,000 school-age youth provided literacy support through online reading and tutoring platform. 4- Served more than 3,800 people at Project Connect events, focused on providing critical services for those experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness. 5- Distributed more than 19,000 Weekend Hunger Backpacks to youth from low-income households. 6- Assisted more than 35,000 individuals in receiving SNAP and WIC benefits through DES. 7- Assisted more than 7,400 individuals with job training and employment. 8- More than 7,000 individuals received financial coaching. 9- Trained 70 community members to be food and financial literacy trainers. 10- Worked with community to build 60 new garden beds.