Community Investment

Despite the very best efforts of hundreds of hard working social service agencies, many individuals and families in St. Joseph County continue to struggle to be successful in life, to be self-sufficient.

Our Community Investment Strategy

Today's United Way believes that the key to addressing our community-wide social concerns is to understand the underlying problems that are occurring in the lives of the individuals and families who seek services from our partner agencies. By addressing the solution to the problems in a holistic fashion, we can move people to self-sufficiency. As such our programs are not quick fixes that just address symptoms, but rather preventative in nature. We ask questions such as:

• What is happening to the family as a whole that is keeping them in crisis - having to choose between utilities, medicine, food or a roof over their heads?
• How can we ensure that at-risk youth succeed in school and don't become dropout statistics?
• How do we change behaviors, at all ages, to insure that conflicts can be resolved without violence?

We also believe that to create change on a scale that matters, we must work in collaboration with a broad range of partners -- government, business, foundations, advocacy groups, neighborhood agencies, and individual donors -- who share a common vision.

Measuring Results

United Way of St. Joseph County launched a tool in 2007 that will track the movement of individual clients and families toward achieving self-sufficiency. This will provide us the ability to understand trends, identify gaps in services as well as recidivism rates.

United Way of St. Joseph County recognizes that problems in the community will never go away. Our goal is to bring balance to the issue of supply and demand. Our goal is to ensure that we are moving people to self-sufficiency through our agency programs and through our community collaborations.