Program areas at United Way of Metropolitan Dallas
Uwmd builds and administers collaborative programs and initiatives that ensure more students graduate ready to succeed, enable more families to become financially stable, and give people the tools to lead healthy, productive lives. Examples include: 1. Pathways to economic mobility helps families increase savings, improve credit scores, reduce debt, and avoid predatory lending products. In fiscal year 2021-2022, over 60,000 people accessed financial capability services through United Way, including 6,000 that participated in one-on-one financial coaching. Our free tax preparation program helped almost 4,000 people obtain $8.6 million in refunds. (continued in schedule o)united Way increased access to credit-building loans and college savings accounts, adding 176 capital good fund loans and 230 new dollars for college accounts. Our financial inclusion roundtable provided capability building and networking opportunities for more than 50 community organizations and financial institutions in the region. 2. Pathways to work equips young adults for living wage jobs and advances workforce equity in the Dallas region. In fiscal year 2021-2022, 21,400 individuals participated in employment services, with 1,600 completing vocational training and almost 3,000 placed in jobs. Pathways to work engaged forty program partners, including training providers, employers and industry associations to drive improvements in local workforce outcomes. 3. Digital connections is an initiative to bridge the digital divide by providing thousands of free devices, tech support, and digital literacy to residents in southern Dallas. The goal of the program is to help students in Dallas neighborhoods engage in online learning and set them up for success in today's digital school and job environments, while also providing families with access to essential resources, like online job portals, telemedicine, online banking, and more. United Way of Metropolitan Dallas partnered with at&t, compudopt, and cardboard project to provide more than 2,000 refurbished laptops, digital literacy classes, and technology support to k-12 students, young adults, and families across various locations in southern Dallas. 4. Southern Dallas thrives is a targeted initiative advancing our mission and impact with a focus on providing critical services, resources, and supports in communities that have been under-resourced, under-served, and disproportionately impacted by long-term systemic and systematic racism. Through the southern Dallas thrives initiative, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas aims to bring residents, corporations, service providers, educators, funders, and civic leaders together to continuously identify and assess assets and needs and leverage resources to build an inclusive economy in southern Dallas. Our goal is to advance long term, sustainable economic mobility within targeted communities for families. 5. United Way social innovation lab is a continuum of capacity building programs for social entrepreneurs in education, income and health. The lab currently includes the incubator (early-stage), accelerator (mid-stage) and alumni programs (serving graduates of the incubator and accelerator). Both the incubator and accelerator are mentor-driven programs that invest in organizations that are focused on implementing novel solutions to community challenges through seed funding, intensive professional development, mentorship and coaching, and increased visibility opportunities. The alumni program, which is just launching this year, will feature opportunities for additional investments of financial capital, human capital, and social capital and opportunities for networking, cross-pollination, and community-building. In fiscal year 2021-2022 the programs supported 19 incubator fellows giving $57,500 in program payments and awards in addition to 10 accelerator fellows giving $520,000 in program payments and awards. 6. The Texas home visiting program, funded by the Texas department of family and protective services (dfps), helps good people become great parents. This program matches Dallas county and collin county families with a trained home visitor, a nurse, experienced parent, trained professional or volunteer to answer questions, offer advice, provide support, and teach parents how to prepare their kids for kindergarten. In 2020-2021, 816 families received home visit program services. 7. The healthy outcomes through prevention and early intervention support (hopes) program, funded by the Texas department of family and protective services (dfps), helps Dallas county parents create home environments in which young children can thrive. Working with clinics, organizations, and government agencies, the program's staff helps families receive instruction, support, and community resources. Approximately 523 families received direct parent education program services during fiscal year 2020-2021. Additionally, 967 families received service support referrals through the hopes program. 8. North Texas summer and supper council, a member-led coalition of north Texas organizations working to build capacity and increase awareness of the issue of child hunger insecurity and access. The goal of the council is to provide a supportive collaborative aimed at increasing the capacity and resources available to organizations who provide federally funded child nutrition programs within local communities. The council draws upon a myriad of best practices and implementation techniques to better equip contracting entities in high need areas with tools for success, while offering a collaborative environment for open dialogue. 9. The nonprofit success institute strengthens and supports organizations and nonprofits at different stages of growth in collin county. In partnership with communities foundation of Texas and toyota of north america, this program provides training and resources to enable small and medium sized nonprofits, churches, and organizations to operate more efficiently, increase their impact, and gain access to capital. In fiscal year 2021-2022 the program supported and invested in nine organizations. 10. The Dallas rental assistance collaborative (drac) is funded with the treasury department's emergency rental assistance program (erap) and serves households within the city of Dallas who have been affected by covid in some form, financially. In partnership with 15 nonprofit organizations United Way has served 7,239 households and distributed $31,044,555.49 from june 2020 - december 2022. In addition to distributing funds, United Way has also established an extensive rental assistance navigation system within drac to allow the most vulnerable households in need, those evicted with a court order, to receive fast and effective services to avoid eviction.
United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Inc. Enables donors to designate their gifts to other United ways or to specific agencies. In fiscal year 2021-2022, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Inc. Processed $3,672,220 in designations.
We collaborated with a broad spectrum of community partners to develop our aspire 2030 goals: our north star for driving transformational change and advancing racial equity in education, income, and health across north Texas through the year 2030. In education we seek to increase by 50% the number of north Texas students reading on grade level by third grade. In income we seek to increase the number of north Texas young adults who earn a living wage by 20%. In health we seek to increase to 96% the number of north texans with access to affordable health care insurance. (continued in schedule o) in fiscal year 2021-2022, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas created positive impact on the lives of more than 1.5 million north texans and invested in 118 exceptional education, income, and health organizations through our community impact grants. Education 840,000 students laid the groundwork for continued educational success.income265,000 north texans received assistance to get and keep better jobs and build savings for the future. Health 385,000 neighbors gained access to the health and wellness resources they need to live longer, healthier lives.