Madison’s most well-known duck pond is usually a place where attendees hear the crack of a baseball bat meeting a baseball, but on Tuesday, Aug. 22 the United Way of Dane County hopes to hit a grand slam with its new Seasons of Caring Community Kickoff event.
On that day, the UWDC will invite people to the Madison Mallards’ Duck Pond at Warner Park to take part in what could be the largest volunteer project in Dane County, with several on-site volunteer projects, dinner provided by the Madison Mallards, and family-friendly activities. It’s all part of the 2017 United Way campaign, which is different from years past because instead of a Days of Caring theme, the emphasis will be on a year-round Seasons of Caring model.
The campaign will unfold with a focus on enriching employee engagement at local businesses. Both the Aug. 22 kickoff and the ramped up employee engagement initiative are attempts to marshal the human resources needed to strike out poverty, especially in the areas of education, income stability, and health.
Bob Trunzo, CEO of CUNA Mutual Group and the 2017 Campaign Chair, says past campaigns have done a solid job engaging area workers, but with businesses changing and evolving, the United Way needs to think about what the future workforce engagement model looks like and how to keep it going. Among the changes people will see are pilot programs to stimulate volunteerism and a more donor-friendly website.
“This is about taking the workforce campaign model and adding to it,” Trunzo says.
Great need
As United Way representatives note, even though Dane County has the lowest unemployment rate in the state of Wisconsin (2.7%), more than 9,400 Dane County residents are still unemployed and one in eight people here live in poverty. The unemployment rate for the Dane County Latino community is 6.8%, and the jobless rate in the African-American community is an unacceptably high 16.7%.
United Way of Dane County has responded with its HIRE Education Employment Initiative and while encouraging progress has been made in terms of providing stable employment for people of color, it’s important to keep the momentum going. To accomplish this, the UWDC wants to raise $300,000 this year.
Affordable housing is another area of emphasis for United Way. While more than 200 local families found stable housing through the organization’s Housing First program, another 300 families remain homeless. An additional $1.8 million will be required to get those families on a path to economic stability, the organization estimates.
Trunzo has taken part in more than 40 CEO visits around Dane County, and a couple of themes emerged. First, the conversations produced an understanding of what the community needs to accomplish with regard to fighting poverty and providing affordable housing. Second, there is an acknowledgement that these issues are solvable “if we can get our heads around it,” Trunzo states.
Area CEOs also are interested in how they can get their respective workforces engaged in these issues. “It’s always a selling point for an employer when you can get your employees involved,” Trunzo notes.
Karen Timberlake, a senior advisor for Michael Best Strategies and a United Way of Dane County board member, spoke of the connecting role the United Way intends to play with entities that can be part of the affordable housing solution, whether they are private lenders, real estate developers, or other stakeholders. “This is a solvable problem,” states Timberlake, who also chairs the United Way Vision Council. “If we decide as a community to put a stake in the ground and work creatively, it’s a matter of skills and ‘stick-to-itiveness.’”
The role of the United Way’s Vision Council is to ensure that the dollars contributed through the fundraising campaign are invested strategically in evidence-based programs aligned with community priorities identified in the UWDC’s “Agenda for Change.”
Part of that agenda is to ensure that low-income children have access to educational support and that pre-kindergarten children enter school prepared to learn. Toward that end, more than 3,500 students were tutored across four Dane County school districts, but that doesn’t meet the total need. According to United Way, there are nearly 14,000 students in 16 local school districts that could be helped, and an additional $4.1 million is needed to support those students.
In addition, 350 children ages 2–4 were the beneficiaries of hands-on learning through UWDC’s Parent-Child Home Program, which is designed to prepare them for four-year-old kindergarten. However, upwards of 1,800 children under age five who live in poverty are at-risk of falling behind, and an additional $500,000 would support 100 children and the adults in their lives through parent coaching.
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Pilots and co-pilots
As part of its workforce engagement strategy, UWDC is trying to shed its image among some as a “tired” organization, especially among millennials, and it also wants to reach retirees who still want to be involved. A number of pilot programs have been established to leverage the interest and skills of different segments of the community, including a retiree pilot and a “text-to-give” pilot to reach a younger group of willing volunteers.
The United Way is observing its 95th anniversary and Renee Moe, president and CEO of UWDC, says it’s important to shed that tired image among millennials — and for several reasons. First and foremost, the members of this generation are very eager to engage in the community and they want employers to accommodate that desire.
Clearly, the synergies for such a collaborative relationship already exist. “It’s time for another evolution to make sure we meet the changing needs of the community,” Moe states.
The Aug. 22 Seasons of Caring Kickoff will take place from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Mallards Duck Pond. More than 500 volunteers are expected and about half of those volunteer spots have already been filled. For more information about volunteering at the Aug. 22 event or to volunteer year-round, visit the UWDC website: unitedwaydanecounty.org/get-involved.
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