Brown County United Way

Brown County United Way strives for an inclusive community where every person in our community is able to meet their basic needs and have equal opportunity for stability in their health, education, financial well-being, and connection to community.

Impact initiatives and advocacy solutions - in the area of impact initiatives, we are leading and partnering on efforts to bring about physical and social environment change to improve community systems. Beginning in 2019, the majority of our impact initiatives became place-based, focusing primarily on neighborhoods. Our central objectives are to improve social cohesion, growth, and vitality through research, evidence, community partnerships, and the voices of residents, helping to ensure that neighborhoods are safe places where people can thrive. In support of this work, during 2022 our community investment staff organized and lead community building activities, numberous volunteer projects, and events, and surveyed community members. Our neighborhood partnership grant program, established in 2020, continued to invest in neighborhood-based projects and initiatives, including a community gardens project. The staff team also organized trauma-informed care trainings for human service providers and other partners, began developing a new training program focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and partnered in the launch of a new pay it forward loan program to help low-income individuals avoid predatory lenders via no-interest loans. With respect to advocacy solutions, our objective in this area is to seek out the voice of the community and advocate for policy change. Our voice of alice research, launched in 2019, captured the live experiences of individuals and families in our community who are struggling to meet basic needs. Their experiences, coupled with additional qualitative and quantitative research, is shaping our new advocacy agenda, which is guided by our advocacy council. During 2022, community investment staff and the advocacy council continued to refind an advocacy agenda and also developed a new community initiative called the mobil resource connector, which will deliver services to people where they live and work through three types of vehicles and many collaborating agencies. We also continued to partner with others at local, state, and federal levels to provide information about community needs and co-create solutions regarding issues such as childcare, mental wellness, nonprofit stability, and housing/homelessness.

Program investment - investing in local direct service programs to positively impact individuals. During 2022, our program investment portfolio included grants to 23 programs. These programs provided direct assistance to a projected 16,000 individuals in our community, within the priority investment areas of education, health, financial wellbeing, and connection to community. During 2021 we also established an emergency response fund, which (as of february 2023) has helped more than 15,000 people through 50 grants to community organizations, in response to the covid-19 pandemic and other public response efforts such as the resettlement of refugees from afghanistan. United Way community investment staff members coordinated the year-round work of the committees of community volunteers charged with vetting grant proposals and provided outcomes consulting and program evaluation support to local programs.

Information and referral services: Brown County United Way's 2-1-1 contact center is a free, confidential information and referral service that made thousands of referrals to community resources in 2022. A comprehensive community resource database comprised of more than 2,000 resources was maintained by Brown County United Way 2-1-1 resource specialists, in collaboration with the aging & disability resource center of Brown County and the crisis center of family services of northeast Wisconsin. 2022 accomplishments in partership with the greater green bay labor council included the blanketing Brown County driver and a diaper drive, which collected thousands of blankets, diapers, and baby items for distribution to Brown County programs serving low-income individuals and families. Community information system: the community information system (cis) is a multidisciplinary data sharing system designed to improve decision support for policymakers, create effective interagency coordination and support the community. Brown County United Way and achieve Brown County co-own the cis via a strategic partnership alliance.