One of the things we can’t do enough is thank all of you who support the work of United Way. Whether you give, advocate or volunteer for us, you are directly responsible for third graders reading better, folks overcoming poverty and access to quality health care.
At our recent Annual Meeting, we celebrated some successes in 2013:
In a major effort to advance the second of our three areas of interest – Income – we used 2013 to help research, design and build the Marion Community Pipeline Initiative. In many cases we assume that once people complete training or education, they have all the tools they need, however not everyone can achieve independence without ongoing support. The Pipeline Initiative provides guidance for individuals that want to be financially stable and are willing to work hard to get there. With the help of talented agency and business professionals and Marion Matter graduates, we determined likely barriers and identified or created resources to overcome those barriers. We also secured agreement from the Pipeline partners to provide accelerated services for Pipeline participants. The goal is to move people from vulnerability to financial stability as quickly as possible and track success. The Pipeline is currently meeting with the first candidates.
We have all felt the negative effects of our economy’s downturn and United Way is no exception. It is essential that we discover ways to do more with less, which is what gave birth to our targeted volunteer recruitment efforts. Although financial resources are vital, extraordinary things can be accomplished with committed volunteers. We reorganized our staff and redistributed work load in order to create a Community Engagement Coordinator position dedicated to recruiting community members and matching them with volunteer opportunities they like and are good at. Our goal is to help people feel the impact they can make on another person’s life. In the last six months we have recruited 78 new volunteers to add to the almost 500 we were already working with. Recently we were notified that the RSVP Program will no longer be operating in Marion County, so this effort becomes even more important for the county.
Marion County is very blessed to have a full menu of effective and efficient social and public services, however there is just one problem – people are not necessarily aware of them. We all suffer from information overload, so much of the marketing and education we do goes unheard. When something terrible happens, like job loss, illness or natural disaster, people struggle to find the resources they need. In 2013, United Way of Marion County was awarded a $100,000 grant to bring 2-1-1 information and referral services to both Marion and Wyandot Counties. 2-1-1 works much like 9-1-1 but with non-emergency information and referral. In fact, it is proven to relieve the heavy call volume of 9-1-1 emergency calls. By dialing 2-1-1, you will be connected to a trained information and referral specialist 24 hours per day, seven days per week, who will help you find the resources you need.
We also set our priorities for 2014:
- We will be looking more closely at what we can do to impact health issues other than access, specifically improving the wellness of our residents.
- Because we have discovered that some of the most impactful things we do are done without money, we will work hard to increase the number of volunteers in Marion County and match them with meaningful opportunities.
- We will successfully implement professional, county-wide, 24/7 2-1-1 information and referral services on or before October 31, 2014.
- And finally, we must continue to do a better job of telling our story to you and our other donors.
We celebrate the successes above with you as our partners in this work, and hope that you are willing to help us achieve even greater things in 2014.
With many thanks,
Pamela J. Stone
Executive Director
United Way of Marion County
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