United Way of King County is not only one of the largest agencies in the 1,100-member United Way Worldwide system, but also regarded as one of the most influential. Other agencies often take cues from us as we all look to tackle issues such as housing and food insecurity, as well as education and financial disparities.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that UWKC staff members Joy Sebe, Whitney Nakamura, and Holly Lackey drew raves from their presentation on public-private partnerships at last week’s United Way Western Regional Conference in Portland.

The regional conference attracted more than 350 attendees from 90 United Ways across 15 states for three days of sessions on fundraising strategies, program development, community impact, staff engagement, and marketing/communications. Nearly two dozen UWKC staff attended the conference, including several who made presentations during the three-day event.

Sebe, UWKC director of education strategies, led the breakout session, “Leveraging Public-Private Partnerships to Provide Stable Support to Immigrant Families.” Sebe, UWKC early learning impact manager Whitney Nakamura, and community impact manager Holly Lackey not only defined the meaning of public-private partnerships, but also how United Ways can use them to stabilize funding for communities.

The three UWKC staffers were not the only ones conveying our work and expertise at the conference.

UWKC IT project manager Sofia Austin took part in two panel presentations. The first was a mini-breakout session entitled, “A Framework for United Ways to Leverage Automation and AI.” The second was a plenary session entitled, “Leading Innovation and Transformation in a Complex World.”

Closing out the conference was a breakout session, “From Local Programs to Statewide Change: Scaling Food and Tax Access,” that featured Sara Seelmeyer, UWKC director of Ending Hunger; Elsa Young, UWKC food security impact manager; and Ryan McFerran, UWKC senior manager for tax credits and financial stability.

In the public-private partnership presentation, Sebe detailed how UWKC supports local agencies in the national ParentChild+ early learning program. UWKC has supported the home visiting program for more than 15 years, helping preschoolers prepare for kindergarten and beyond while equipping parents with tools to be better teachers and advocates for their children. UWKC provides funding to more than a dozen local organizations that provide the ParentChild+ program.

“With public-private funding partnerships, we have three funders working together,” said Sebe. “With United Way of King County, the private funder, our Engagement Team … is actively, actively fundraising for this program to get those private dollars out the door. At the same time, we are receiving grants from our city and county governments. We’re pulling all that money together and getting out to contracts, in this case to 13 grantee organizations.”

Joy Sullivan, CEO of United Way of Larimer County (Fort Collins, CO), praised UWKC for our investment in early learning. “It’s a testament to taking risks in those first thousand days of life. All we put in the downstream impacts of the lack of access to early opportunities. You guys are showing what happens when you take that risk and go all in on kids and families in these early years.”

For more information about United Way of King County’s early learning work, click here.