United Way of Greater Los Angeles

 
HomeWalk 2007 -
United Way's President and CEO Elise Buik
is in the front left (in blue shirt) and
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
is directly behind her.

Los Angeles’ United Way has changed dramatically.

Founded more than 80 years ago, United Way of Greater Los Angeles is one of the region’s oldest and most respected charitable organizations, but an ambitious 10-year Action Plan announced in February 2007 marks a dramatic change of course for the venerable institution.

The Action Plan

The Action Plan identifies three areas where United Way of Greater Los Angeles will focus its efforts to reduce poverty in Los Angeles: helping people meet basic needs like food, shelter, and health care; improving youth educational achievement; and helping families with the opportunities and skills they need to become financially stable. The plan sets some impressive goals, including benchmarks to “increase the high school graduation rate to 75%,” and “ensure 100% of children have health insurance.”

“It’s not just a matter of
funding good programs;
it’s really trying to look at the policies
that will create an environment
where more people have access
to the resources that will help them
move out of poverty.”

President and CEO Elise Buik believes the Action Plan, which was shaped by a strategic planning process involving more than 200 community and business leaders, will help United Way of Greater Los Angeles better target both the causes and consequences of poverty. “To give you an example, we had for many years really invested a lot of our focus in early childhood education,” said Buik. “But we got a lot of input from community leaders saying that because of the First 5 program, there’s a lot more focus on early childhood, but where we’re losing the kids is more in middle school and there’s not a lot of focus on that area.”

Buik credits Southern California Grantmakers for helping to facilitate their new efforts. ”It’s a great organization that really identifies what funders are doing and tries to provide a forward-looking view of what’s happening in the community and how funders can be more responsive to the needs of the community,” she said.

Elise Buik became the first woman to serve as President and CEO of the organization when she was appointed in 2005. Buik and fellow Board Member Stewart Kwoh were given a Vision Award from the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness (LACEH&H) in February 2008 for their efforts to reduce homelessness in Los Angeles.

The Action Plan also represents an unprecedented shift in the way United Way of Greater Los Angeles pursues its goals. For the first time in its history, the organization is engaging in a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) funding process. “A lot of the funding in the past has been based on history. There are actually some partners United Way has funded for 50, 70 years,” Buik explained. “When I took over as president, a lot of people told me that they felt United Way was kind of a fortress that you could never be a part of. We weren’t really bringing in a lot of new partners.”

That is no longer the case, claims Buik, who is pleased with the proposals the organization received in the first year of the new RFP process. “The final portfolio that we ended up with, about half of the partners were new to United Way. What’s great is that a lot of our long-term partners, they’ve really evolved over time, but we also have some very exciting, dynamic new partners who weren’t around 20, 25 years ago.”

Buik says the organization has worked hard to make the new process fair and accountable, and also tried to make the transition as painless as possible for the nonprofits they traditionally funded. “We had a very open and transparent process. We gave a lot of lead time to tell nonprofits that we were moving in this direction. We would meet with nonprofits every week to really talk to them about the plan and explain it to them and answer any questions.”

Unlike foundations that rely on endowments, United Way chapters must raise all their operating and program funds every year. United Way of Greater Los Angeles raised $58 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, and distributed $48 million to the community, about $13 million of which was disseminated through the new RFP process.

FAST FACTS

When was United Way founded?: In 1924 the First Community Chest campaign in Los Angeles combined appeals from 166 agencies to raise $2,492,000 from 168,000 citizens. In 1963, the first organization in the world named “United Way” was formed in Los Angeles, consolidating 33 (ultimately 37) community chests in a campaign that raised $15,582,000.

Description/mission: United Way of Greater Los Angeles is a nonprofit organization that creates pathways out of poverty by focusing on meeting basic needs, improving educational achievement and increasing financial stability for the most vulnerable in our community. Through its research work, United Way identifies the issues and works in partnership with community leaders and supporters to solve them by funding targeted programs and advocating for change. For more information, visit www.unitedwayla.org.

Amount of grants last year: $58 million was raised for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, while $43 million was distributed to the community.

Where is giving directed?: The three vital areas identified as key to reducing poverty: meeting basic needs like food, shelter and health care; improving the educational achievement of youth; and helping families with the opportunities and skills they need to become financially stable. Through their new RFP process, United Way of Greater Los Angeles is looking for nonprofit partners that can help them achieve the following 10 goals:

1. Help more homeless people get off the streets by investing in solutions that result in individuals having access to permanent housing and needed services/
2. Help the working poor move out of poverty by doubling the number of people in United Way family savings programs and increasing access to existing income supports by $4 million.
3. Ensure 90% of parents in United Way Programs know how to improve their child’s performance at school and their options for college.
4. Increase high school graduation rate to 75% by ensuring that students have the courses and support they need to graduate prepared for college and skilled for the workforce.
5. Increase skill levels of working age adults by supporting English and literacy programs, and recruiting volunteer teachers.
6. Ensure 100% of children have health insurance by working at the state and federal levels to leverage funding and support.
7. Ensure 60% of students complete college prep courses by partnering with parents, youth, teachers, and school districts.
8. Ensure 75% of at-risk students in United Way programs successfully transition from middle to high school.
9. Ensure 75% of nonprofit partners work together to provide integrated basic needs services for low-income families.
10. Increase income levels of 10,000 adults in United Way programs by training and placing them in good-paying jobs with career ladders.

Number of Board Members: 43.

HomeWalk L.A.

One of the recent fundraising strategies has been through the HomeWalk event held November 17, 2007, which attracted over 4,300 walkers and raised more than $500,000. Produced in collaboration with the Fannie Mae Foundation Help the Homeless Program and Walkathon, the 5k family walk was held in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. Other HomeWalk events took place simultaneously in Washington D.C. and six other cities across the nation.

Board Member Stewart Kwoh, who is President and Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California (APALC) and was a driving force behind HomeWalk, built a coalition of supporters that enabled the event to attract so many people – and raise so much money – for its first time in the area. “It was a lot of work by United Way staff,” said Kwoh. “We had meetings with nonprofit and corporate and government leaders. We had a lot of individual meetings because we were asking them to form teams as well as to give money to the individual walkers. The Fannie Mae Foundation contributed $250,000. The executives at Enterprise Car Rental were very proud they had 40 or 50 people walking, and they want to double it this year. So I really feel like we could get tens of thousands of people out there eventually.”

Kwoh believes the impact of HomeWalk goes far beyond the money it raised. “It creates a broader public will to do something,” he said. “It engages public officials and different leaders who deal with homelessness to start working together in a more concerted way. The $500,000 net will be distributed on a couple of solutions. One is permanent supportive housing, and secondly, there are some studies that showed that if you can really help families that have just become homeless, that that kind of emergency funding can really help them get on their feet again so they don’t get locked into the homeless environment.”

The Power of Partnerships

United Way’s Action Plan also puts a renewed emphasis on the organization’s research and education efforts, which Elise Buik believes can contribute to new partnerships. “We find that by establishing a baseline of understanding about what’s really happening, that really can open the door for us to work with educators and business leaders and our partner organizations so that we can unify our actions,” said Buik.

Partnerships are at the core of many of United Way’s new initiatives. Stewart Kwoh hopes there will be more opportunities for alliances with other foundations, for example. “Most people I’ve spoken to outside of United Way have seen this as a new day,” reported Kwoh. “I think now foundations can look at United Way as a possible partner in a way that they couldn’t do before. As an example, because health and homelessness are very closely tied together, The California Endowment saw this was an opportunity to partner with us to deepen their health work among homeless people.”

Elise Buik describes the way some of Southern California Grantmakers’ programs helped them partner with like-minded organizations, disseminate their research findings, and publicize their programs to the general public. “They connected us to an education funders’ forum and a homeless funders’ forum, so it allows us to quickly partner with other folks and identify some natural partnerships,” she explained. “And I think just their ability to help us get the word out on some things we feel are important, like promoting our research reports so that other funders have access to that data is really helpful. They were a big partner in helping us get the word out about HomeWalk and getting people to be a part of that.”

New Emphasis on Advocacy

Buik maintains that the plan’s focus on public policy represents the greatest change of direction for the organization. “The advocacy part is very new for United Way. It’s not just a matter of funding good programs; it’s really trying to look at the policies that will create an environment where more people have access to the resources that will help them move out of poverty,” she stated.

“We also want to not only educate our donors about our policy work, but also engage them in it,” Buik continued. “To give you an example, we’re now sorting everyone that walked in the HomeWalk by zip code, and as there are local decisions being made about permanent housing or other solutions in their own neighborhoods, we’re encouraging them to join us to be a voice for change.”

Southern California Grantmakers helped guide United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ new policy focus, according to Buik. “Their ability to align funders around some common issues has been very helpful to us. One concrete example is as we were starting to shape our plan, Southern California Grantmakers was really identifying this whole movement by the funding community and grantmakers to look at policy and advocacy.”

Buik claims her work on the HomeWalk event was one of the most rewarding experiences she has had leading United Way of Greater Los Angeles: “It’s one thing to develop plans, but to be there that day with over 4,000 people from all stretches of the county walking on behalf of that issue, that’s where you feel the power of what we’re doing.”