We take the work of investing donor dollars VERY seriously. We strive to be a trusted partner, doing the absolute most good with the money that is entrusted to us each year. We challenge you to find a nonprofit out there who is doing it better than us.
Once you give to United Way, our staff—with the help of very skilled volunteer committees, makes the smartest investments in nonprofits and their programs possible.
Investment Strategy
Everything we invest in has at least two of the following attributes:
Effectiveness
We’re talking serious results like children who participate in our Parent-Child Home Program with their parents are 30% more likely to graduate high school. The programs and organizations we invest in are putting up big numbers and having real impact.
Leverage
This means looking outside of the obvious box and figuring out how we can use the strength United Way has as a large, well-respected organization to do even more. It’s everything from winning large grants like half a million dollars to put more hundreds of AmeriCorp and VISTAs to work in the community, to utilizing $10 million state dollars in the last two years to get high school dropouts back on track.
Influence
We invest in solutions that go to the root of the issue and work toward sustainable changes. This looks like programs and nonprofits who are advocating in Olympia for policy change, or at the school district, city or county level. A recent win was extending the age that youth leave the foster care system from 18 to 21 in order to reduce the number of youth existing foster care and entering homelessness.
Scale
The work we’re doing and investing in has to have reach. Reach like providing 600,000 free summer meals at more than 250 sites throughout King County to ease the burden on families who receive free and reduced priced lunches during the school year. We have to be able to make the solutions work for hundreds, if not thousands. Why? Because Seattle is growing at unprecedented rates and becoming unlivable for many.
Seattle Is Your City. King County Is Your Home. Help Us Make It Shine.
To see more of this in action, check out examples of our signature work which check off all four of the above attributes.