United Way of Olmsted County

Grants: United Way of Olmsted County is focused on these building blocks of a good quality of life. We fight for every individual in our community by focusing on: financial stability - moving individuals and families toward financial independence and ensuring basic needs are met. Education - preparing children and youth to succeed in school and in the community. Health - promoting physical and mental well being. Our goal is to create lasting change by addressing the underlying causes of social problems. We are mobilizing the community and building collaborations that produce results. Together, we are changing Olmsted County for the better for all of us.

Donor designations: as a service to our donors, local agencies, and companies that run campaigns, we will process contributions designated by the donor to a specific agency. We will raise, collect and forward donor contributions to the donor's chosen nonprofit organization. Expenses only include designated dollars to be distributed, and do not include any expenses for fundraising or processing of the designated donations.

Partnerships and initiatives: (1) running start for school mobilizes the community to collect backpacks and school supplies through the summer months and then distributes the donated supplies to local schools for children who are eligible for free or reduced lunch. (2) 211 is a free, confidential, and multilingual human service information and referral resource available by phone, text, onlinechat, and online self-search. Information is available 24 hours a day on a variety of topics including childcare, counseling, food, health services, housing, legal assistance, transportation, volunteering, andmore. (3) get connected, United Way's online tool to connect volunteers to opportunities and events, allows people to volunteer with local organizations that fit the volunteer's schedule and interests. (4) imagination library provides children living in Olmsted County the opportunity to receive a free, age-appropriate book in the mail each month from birth to their fifth birthday. Each book is selected for the developmental benefits it brings. (5) the vita free tax preparation initiative connects low-to moderate-income families to opportunities to file their taxes for free. (6) a community school is both a place and set of collective partnerships between rochester public schools, United Way of Olmsted County, the individual school site, and other community resources. United Way of Olmsted County serves as a lead partner with rochester public schools to facilitate the partnership and organize community resources to support student success at seven sites. Each site has goals established in the areas of attendance, behavior and curriculum improvements and utilizes results based accountability to track growth. (7) cradle 2career is a community wide initiative that utilizes the nationally recognized strive together model to implement a multiyear, multiphase program to improve educational outcomes in our community and ensure every child and young adult succeeds cradle to career, through shared purpose, alignment and accountability among community partners. United Way of Olmsted County is one of several partner organizations and serves a variety of roles within the community wide initiative, including administrative support, data support and leadership.

Community impact, advocacy, grant making, capacity building and result tracking: expenses incurred by the organization to assess community needs, provide outcome measurement training to various entities in the community; provide program assessment, review and selection; administer grants; provide financial and stewardship oversight of grant recipients; provide capacity building for agencies; advocate for causes; and participate in community partnerships to advance common goals in the four focused areas.