Power of United Way across issues
Looking comprehensively at community, across sectors
Do it by engaging people
Do it at scale
Scott
Systems approach to change, at scale
Social impact bond for high quality preschool
Uniform k readiness assessment
Universal pre-k access
- Social impact bond—didn’t start out with this intent, district had some pre-k (they were doing better, fiscal conservatives sold on pre-k impact & pay for success model, in 2014 legislation passed and then they just put the $ in, UW was payback for 1st year, Year 2-5 state pays for.
- Organizing for impact, leadership table for collective impact (Promise Partnership Region), superintendents said we can make this happen without legislature, identify bright spots
- Goal for universal pre-k in Salt Lake County, ballot initiatives, etc.
Cross-sector work—business community invested, speed greater with business mindset
Laura
Young Parents Network
Ready to Read
High levels of volunteer engagement, training with parents, bring kids so parents can practice, voluntary program (attendance up and down), turnover of staff at sites, funding, no true measurement of progress made before k readiness, assessment (parent satisfaction, kid behavior)
RED Ahead - 6 years, didn’t have a good readiness assessment, when women came to WIC clinic they would meet with RED Ahead, kids get books, staff talk to parents, ASQ screening increases, increase of acceptance of referrals and parents starting to ask, 90% of parents involved, if leave WIC, they leave RED Ahead, must come in even for a few minutes to before getting book
Reading into Success, multiple sector buy-in, committees working on each focus area, new programs/projects: Vroom, Kick-off to K, One 2 Read, Take 10!, Creating new partnerships, challenges: some aren’t being reached, not the right fit for everyone, funding
Laurie
Great quality of life in Triangle Area but not for all and low social mobility
Integrating two generation work (80% of dollars), moving from scattered funding to systems change, connect with program that work with parents
Wake Up & Read, work with funding coordination and backbones, communities wanted parent engagement, shared messaging and engagement, collective impact (leadership and equity consultation)
What’s working: partnerships for key stakeholders, 2 gen approach, deliberate collaboration, opportunity for innovation, broad sector engagement
Challenging: silos in school and early childhood, challenge of creating simple messaging
What’s Needed: more funds and resources, more flexibility and adaptability
Key Take-Aways
•Dedicated backbone functions with clear roles and communication (accelerates progress)
•Strongrelationships and trust (MOUs)
•Gathering, sharing and using data to inform the work
•Funding for flexibility and innovation
As UWs we have to innovate.
Mapping RED Ahead
Family to do outreach to families
Laurie—funding funder collaborative, convening backbones
Survey to ask what else can we (UW) do? Corporate relationship, volunteers, etc.
Laura—where volunteers come from? High school groups, parents who have gone through programs, graduate parents come back to teach
UW Volunteer team—manager—young leader society—opportunities for volunteering
Laurie—leverage volunteers, not just paint a fence, but intellectual capital, book drives are a good hook, trying more year round engagement strategies and then going deeper
Moving to impact model can be painful—how do you talk to donors (etc.) about this?
Scott: business case for change, workplace giving steadily going down, mission case for change, don’t want to be “cogs in non-profit industrial complex”, board members had conversations with institutional non-profits and big corporate CEOs to explain change in focus, give money when partnership identifies a gap
Laura—ten years to move the model, more are seeing the value of the model
Laurie—communication with two-year notice around no more traditional allocation models
Alicia—collective impact is intuitive to UWs but need to keep learning
Scott—had a complex about transition but after, people weren’t made anymore, invest a ton of time in good investors, convening, etc. of good backbone
Laura—you can get too good and people want you to manage everything
Laurie—partners are looking at big picture and starting to be OK with shifting $
Laura—partner to bring trainings