The strategic plan of the United Way is focused on creating opportunities for a good life for the citizens of South Hampton Roads. Progress towards this ideal requires thoughtful approaches to improve social conditions as well as working and cooperating with many and varied partners.

A Snapshot

At the policy level United Way recognizes that there are several important metrics that need additional and sustained improvement in order to advance the common good for all. Here are a few examples:

• In South Hampton Roads, the percent of public school kindergarteners retained is 5.3% which is still above the state average by 1.2%. Building literacy skills among pre-school children is an important ingredient for academic success in all grades.

• Far too many students do not graduate from high school prepared to succeed. The percent of students graduating from South Hampton Roads high schools is 62.5%. The state average is 73.6%.

• Although there are impressive initiatives focused on improvements to help as well as end homelessness, the homeless population in South Hampton Roads still hovers close to 1400 individuals.

• An unfortunate change related to today’s economy is the growing number of medically uninsured which is estimated at 156,000 in South Hampton Roads.

These facts present a snapshot of several regional human service indicators that are being addressed on a continuing basis but as we go forward need new methods that will help to bring about measurable improvement.

As an important community organization that relies on voluntary contributions to do its important work, United Way wants to achieve better results in the areas described above. The organization realizes it must challenge itself, other organizations and systems in order to bring about lasting change.

As a result of its strategic planning process, United Way volunteer leaders and staff seek to advance the common good in four distinct focus areas for advancement: 

EDUCATION—Helping Children and Youth Achieve their Potential.

INCOME—Promoting Financial Stability and Independence.

HEALTH—Improving People's Health.

COMMUNITY BUILDING—Encouraging individual and corporate participation.

 

EDUCATION…helping children and youth achieve their potential.

Success By 6 is a United Way initiative that mobilizes the community to advance

school readiness and school success for all children, and to provide data-driven and research-based practices to improve the readiness of children. It is very important that United Way maintain its focus on supporting those programs that are aimed at raising healthy and prepared children and support strong families.

School readiness and all that it represents is an important attribute of children’s successful progress through their academic years. The basic building blocks of readiness include proficiency in many areas including language and early literacy skills.  Children’s development of early literacy skills is dependent on parent and childcare provider engagement and knowledge of how to help.

United Way’s Success By 6 initiative is known for its best practice of Raising A Reader, currently with more than 6600 children in South Hampton Roads.  United Way is committed to maintaining Raising A Reader with all South Hampton Roads public school preschools, childcare centers, Head Start, CHIP/Health Families of Chesapeake, licensed In-home Child Care locations, and Healthy Families and Infant Intervention of Virginia Beach.

Research supports the benefits of engaged, educated, and literate parents on their children’s literacy skills and sustained academic success.  United Way must research, develop and test this assumption during 2009 with its Raising A Reader partners and other interested parties.

The first key indicator is the public school kindergarten retention rate for South Hampton Roads. What was once 8% in 2004 is now 5.3%, but still higher than the state average of 4.1%.  Linked to this is the PALS score, an early assessment of phonological awareness status that is conducted on every Virginian preschool and kindergarten public school student.  Third grade English SOL test scores in South Hampton Roads are 82.1% compared with the state at 80.4%. If in time there is success working with parents of at risk pre-school aged children, there should be improvement in the pass rate of the third graders.

The Education area of the strategic plan is composed of many programs offered by certified agencies aimed at helping youth to become productive, engaged and academically successful. As part of the United Way program funding process, the organization will explore ways to tie additional community metrics to the percent of public school students graduating from high school, and decreasing the percent of student failure and dropout rates to its program funding. Currently there are 88 programs with outcome measures offered by 29 certified agencies.  In 2008 – 2009 United Way expended $5,167,528.  Additionally, there were 2 grants for $13,000 provided by the Women’s Initiative.

INCOME… promoting financial stability and independence.

Financial stability is an elusive concept for many in our community. Over 15,000 families with minimal incomes pay in excess of 35% of their income for housing. Most are lower-income working families who are not financially stable. Added to this cohort are almost 1,400 documented homeless individuals living in our communities last year.

Current United Way program funding for people in crisis is defined as maintaining a community safety net of agencies. Programs include assisting victims of domestic violence, and working with the episodic and chronic homeless, as well as programs that provide skill building to move homeless people toward financial stability. There are 57 programs offered by 24 certified agencies aimed at helping people in crisis with allocations of $2,654,274.  Additionally the Women’s Initiative granted $29,500 to 5 agencies to focus on financial stability programs.

United Way has also expended surplus funds from its Charitable Pledge Processing, LLC operation to assist with costs of building and furnishing the Single Room Occupancies (SRO) in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. This investment provides permanent housing to 120 single formerly homeless persons from across South Hampton Roads. The next SRO is scheduled to be built in Portsmouth.

United Way is also committed to working with Norfolk and Chesapeake to bring volunteers together twice-a-year for the purpose of implementing Project Homeless Connect. This is a consolidated effort by many service providers from cities, state, hospitals, and social service agencies to provide essential services to the homeless and poor populations of our area. 

United Way is an important partner in the South Hampton Roads Earned Income Tax Credit Coalition (EITC) that provides free income tax preparation at 12 sites for eligible tax payers. Since its start in 2004 results have improved each year.  For TY2007 there were 1,284 returns with total refunds of $1.5 million which included $748K in EITC refunds.

These programs align with the United Way of America and many other local United Ways as they work to improve the financial stability for local low-income people. The national objective is to improve the number those considered to be lower-income working families from 36% to 18% over the next decade.

HEALTH …improving the health of children and adults.

Health is strongly linked to education and income: good health allows children to learn better and adults to increase their income through productive work. Conversely, health problems often lead to increased school absences among children, as well as increased on-the-job absences by adults.  Many low paying and entry level jobs are often without health benefits. Fifty percent of bankruptcies in 2005 and 2006 were caused by medical debt. In South Hampton Roads the estimate of medically uninsured persons for the 2003 - 2004 reporting period was 156,000.

The Hampton Roads area had a rate of 9.5 infant death's per 1,000 births, compared with the state’s rate of 7.1 per 1000.  There were sharp disparities between African American and Caucasian infants. There were 14.4 African American infant deaths per 1,000 births, compared with 6.6 among Caucasian births.   Other disparities exist in varying degrees in the areas of hypertension and obesity.  This portion of Virginia has a high rate of obesity which causes increased spending for medication and other health related expenses.

United Way has been assisting medically uninsured with discounts for needed prescriptions.  Working in concert with Access Partnership, all of the Hampton Roads pharmacies honor the Family Wize discount prescription cards. From January 2008 though August 2008, there were 56,000 claims with a retail value of $3.0 million; however, the uninsured received savings of $1.2 million, a savings of 40%. The continuation of this program is essential.

United Way worked closely with Access Partnership on important local health issues like, bringing a Community Health Center of Virginia Beach, expanding the Oral Health Coalition and managed care programs to the Ambulatory Care Center at Norfolk General Hospital and Park Place Medical Center. Other important strategic health issues will be addressed by this partnership in the future.

COMMUNITY BUILDING…encouraging individual and corporate participation.

The strategic planning process also focused on what it means to encourage individuals and corporations to participate in community building.  United Way has three main avenues for effecting change.  They are: giving, volunteering and advocating.

GIVING

Giving and United Way are synonymous. The annual fund raising campaign and the affinity groups that attract the interest of contributors propel the organization toward its body of work.  Each affinity group is aimed at meeting the needs of specific contributors like the Tocqueville Society, Women’s Leadership Council, African American Leadership Giving Initiative, and Young Leaders Society.  Raising one percent or higher than the rate annual rate of inflation is an important metric to measure campaign results. The number of contributors in all affinity groups compared to the previous year is an important metric.  Two other metrics are to receive a clean audit of the United Way’s operation at the completion of each fiscal year, and maintain a 90% or better grade in the annual Contributor Report Card, a confidential voice of the customer assessment conducted annually.

United Way also applies to governing bodies to manage the United Way and Combined Charities Campaign, the once-a-year charitable drive in the municipalities and public schools as well as the Combined Federal Campaign of South Hampton Roads , the once-a-year drive in the Federal military and civilian organizations.  The United Way is privileged to manage these public campaigns is want to be the preferred choice annually.
The metric is to obtain a clean financial and compliance audit after each annual campaign.

The United Way of South Hampton Roads Foundation was established as a separate 501© (3) to assists certified agencies and other small non-profit agencies with asset building and planned giving needs at a reasonable cost. The Foundation now has over fifty distinct funds. Its performance metric is to increase the asset value annually in the range of $900K to $1.3 million.

VOLUNTEERING

Volunteering is an essential attribute of the United Way and as such covers each area of the strategic plan. United Way depends on volunteer leaders on the Board of Directors as well as those who serve on the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and Charitable Pledge Processing, LLC  for policy-making and oversight responsibilities. Committees of many descriptions assist the organization with implementation of policies that covers virtually every facet of operation. Sustaining and improving the volunteer and professional relationships is a key to making improvement in the areas of Education, Income and Health, and fulfilling the mission of the United Way.

ADVOCATING

Working with city, state and federal governments to improve policies and programs for local people is an area for increased participation by the United Way. Currently staff members participate on commissions and committees with various city and state governments. The regional office serves as a voting precinct, as well as a site for forums presented by elected officials. In the past United Way has brought certain issues to the state legislature in Richmond. One such issue was alleviating all United Ways in the state from paying state sales tax. Opportunities for expanded roles with city and state  governments are welcomed.

United Way of America’s  is  becoming a more involved participant at the national level as it seeks to represent local United Ways in the achievement of  goals related Education, Income and Health. United Way of South Hampton Roads will assist the national organization with its national agenda.

 

MISSION

To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of South Hampton Roads communities

VALUES

Help Families and Individuals
Integrity
Customer Driven
Operate at a Reasonable Cost