By Dan Yount, The Cincinnati Herald and Lauren Hall, Scooter Media
United Way of Greater Cincinnati (UWGC) is focused on driving economic mobility and well-being in communities across our region. Through targeted community investments, policy advocacy, and direct services, UWGC is committed to ensuring that today’s challenges do not hinder tomorrow’s generations. The agency’s focus is on educational success, financial empowerment and housing security.
In particular, UWGC’s Black Empowerment Works program promotes Black self-determination, social mobility and economic prosperity by providing resources and funding to grassroots/community-based, Black-led work. The Black Empowerment Works program supports about 170 leaders in the program.
United Way of Greater Cincinnati (UWGC) recently announced its investment strategy for the remaining $22 million of MacKenzie Scott’s extraordinary gift to the organization. These investments will continue to drive critical impact in education, housing and workforce readiness over the next three years. In addition, UWGC is announcing $2.3 million in partnerships and initiatives aimed at improving youth success and workforce readiness.
Scott is the former wife of billionaire Jeff Bezos. She became interested in donating part of her wealth to the local United Way.
UWGC President and CEO Moira Weir recently outlined bold, innovative investments during the organization’s donor event, A Brighter Tomorrow.
The agency serves nine counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.
“The first thing we did was to respond to the Covid pandemic crisis locally, using five million dollars of the MacKenzie Scott fund for urgent needs,” said Weir. “After Covid was brought under control, the gaps (for minorities) became larger, causing us to focus on things that help close those gaps. The last three years we have been helping families in terms of their financial stability, educational success, and ensuring all children have same opportunities.’’
In regard to the latter service, United Way has been working to address the high rate of absenteeism in some of most undersourced neighborhoods, Weir said. “This involves how we support children outside the classroom. Do they have housing, internet service, and other services in a placed-based approach. We are here to support the family,’’ she added.
“Every child is filled with remarkable promise, and we have a collective responsibility to ensure that children in our community can thrive,” she said.
United Way officials have five strategies to support young people and ensure they have opportunities to realize their greatest potential. First, UWGC is investing $2.3 million to support educational and youth leadership capacity through the following partnerships and initiatives:
- EducateNKY – $500,000 new, placed based mission
- HEY Cincinnati – $250,000 for mental health for youth involving Interact for Health support
- The Talent Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati – $450,000 to support the Workforce Intervention Center of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber in engaging youth and others in developing their talents
- Launching of a Regional Head Start Innovation Fund – $500,000 to getting children back in the classroom
- Pilot a child savings program for college expenses – $125,000.
- Pilot a basic needs stipend for teens and young adults – $500,000. A similar program in New Orleans has been successful in improving education outcomes.
“These investments create supportive avenues for young people to achieve economic well-being,” Weir said. “These partners play critical roles in driving positive results, so we’re collaborating to scale up efforts throughout the region.
In addition, UWGC is prepared to invest the remainder of philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s $25 million gift strategically over the next three years. United Way received the funding in December 2020 amidst the disruption and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Early on, the organization paired $5 million of the grant with public funds to rebuild organizational capacity, support community initiatives and better connect individuals to short-term financial relief.
With a clearer picture of how our community has changed since 2020, the UWGC Board of Directors recently approved plans to invest more than $22 million to support longer-term recovery efforts, focusing the people side of the recovery efforts, including education and career successes, housing security, providing legal aid, creating family wealth, helping remove peoples’ fears, and other services.
“United Way took a strategic, patient approach to investing the MacKenzie Scott funding,” said UWGC Board Chair Brian Hodgett. “We managed to grow the initial gift, and as a result, we’re able to engineer cross-sector collaborations and pilot innovative solutions that can transform our community.”
Additional funding is earmarked for the ongoing expansion of 211 call service— the resource and referral service staffed by UWGC — and housing security efforts, including eviction prevention and homeownership preservation. All these investments, aligned with the CincinnatiFutures Commissionreport, support strategies to drive regional growth, support educational success and strengthen workforce development.
United Way officials have completed much of the work on their 211 call service through which residents can call the agency 24-7 to ask about housing, child care, and other services. Weir saids staff members are using a lot of those calls to help us drive their services.
She added that the charity is maximizing public dollars received as well as support from various partnerships. “We are driven by community organizations, and we want to ensure these organizations have the resources they need,” she said.
United Way of Greater Cincinnati has 1,167 partner agencies and organizations ready to help, 2,220 locations for agencies in the region, and 3,794 programs available.
Learn more about UWGC’s work across nine counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana at UWGC.org. #UnitedWeThrive