United Way Suncoast

Early learning: with 90 percent of brain development occurring between the ages of 0 and 5, we recognize that a decided focus on those critical formative years can yield more successful adults and families. United Way Suncoast has now extended its United we learn initiative with a $2.8 million annual investment in 43 early learning partners focusing on improving kindergarten readiness, reading on grade level by third and removing barriers like food insecurity and vision impairment. It includes professional development and environmental support for childcare centers, reading room instruction in manatee county, and learn and play instruction for parents and children as part of our campbell park network for early learning. (continued on schedule o)we also distributed united4literacy kits across the region. Research supports this early learning approach, with multiple studies indicating that students who arrive at kindergarten ready to learn are more likely to thrive in a k-12 environment, more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to enjoy postsecondary success and more likely to avoid a host of societal pitfalls, including incarceration and drug addiction. However, the covid-19 has exacerbated the challenges revolving around the United we learn effort. The pandemic heightened the nation's early learning crisis, reducing the number of early learning educators across the nation by 100,000, while adversely impacting access and increasing costs. In our five-county region, the annual average cost for a year of childcare for a non-infant is higher than a year of tuition at the university of south Florida. The crisis propelled United Way Suncoast into its leadership role, and we produced an early learning dashboard that crystalizes the issues and provides stakeholders across the region with a viable source as they chart action. The learning losses created by virtual learning also impacted third grade reading, another key focus for this initiative. United Way Suncoast met the challenge, funding the placement of paraprofessionals in four of our five school districts and expanding its elementary support to 36 schools of focus. In addition, United Way Suncoast continued its highly successful summer care program, reducing literacy regression for more than 500 students. Myon: in partnership with other area leaders in literacy, uws coordinates the use of the myon digital platform in hillsborough and pinellas counties and provides a total of $150,000 in financial support. From july 1, 2021 - june 30, 2022, over 50,000 hillsborough county students logged in, with an additional 28,000 in pinellas county. In both counties, students accessed over 6.9 million books throughout the year.reading rooms: in manatee county, two reading rooms have been established to bring early education resources and programs to where the most vulnerable children and families live: community supported housing neighborhoods. The initiative is designed to eliminate the barriers to quality education, while providing a platform to financial stability resources for families.campaign for grade-level reading: United Way is the lead agency for the Suncoast campaign for grade-level reading in desoto and manatee counties, where through partnerships with the school districts, community foundations, county government, early learning coalitions and other strategic community partners, the community comes together to improve reading rates. The big plan in manatee county continued its focus on 10 neighborhood schools with a goal of doubling the number of third graders reading on level by 2026. We also lead the campaign for grade-level reading in hillsborough county.

Strategic vision: philanthropist mackenzie scott gave more than a transformational gift to United Way Suncoast in december 2020. She issued a clarion call to United Way Suncoast and the other nonprofit recipients benefiting from her philanthropy. The message was clear: extend your mission work, help more people, address the challenges brought on by the pandemic and the nation's social justice reawakening. That's why we created our rise (reach, invest, support and empower) initiatives with the support of our team, board of directors, and community partners. The initiatives identified aligned with our 2021, five-year strategic plan and maintain a focus on our key impact areas: early learning, youth success and financial stability. (continued on schedule o)our efforts supported immediate community needs addressing the impacts of the affordable housing crisis and deepened our lasting impact in early learning. We also began work in our big & bold initiatives by investing in the capacity and impact data support of our nonprofit partners as well as launching new community data tools including our affordable housing crisis and early learning dashboards. We also invested in strengthening uws' ability to thrive long-term by addressing our technology needs.

Financial stability: our financial stability programs strive to ensure alice families have access to financial services and supports as well as career opportunities that lead to a sustaining wage and put them on a path to prosperity. These programs focus on financial health and workforce development which include the volunteer income tax assistance initiative, a free tax preparation service for families and individuals, bank on Suncoast, a grassroots coalition that aims to improve the financial stability of individuals who are unbanked or underbanked, financial coaching, and individual development accounts. In addition, United Way Suncoast works to address emerging issues such as the ongoing housing crisis. (continued on schedule o)to address this, we launched a comprehensive effort in 2022 that has helped thousands of families stay in their homes or find new, stable housing. Free income tax preparation/volunteer income tax assistance: United Way Suncoast believes that no low to moderate income households should pay someone to file their taxes. Each year, we help residents with a household income of $74,000 or less keep their hard-earned money by offering free income tax preparation through the volunteer income tax assistance program. During the 2022 tax season, 7,145 tax returns were prepared by trained vita volunteers, returning nearly $11 million to our five-county region. This includes nearly $5 million in earned income tax credits and child tax credits alone. Over the last two years, vita has returned more than $20 million in tax refunds to our region.bank on Suncoast: bank on is a local grassroots coalition that works with community stakeholders to improve the financial stability of individuals who do not have any bank accounts or use alternative financial services, like check cashing services and payday loans. Bank on's goal is to ensure the unbanked and the underbanked gain access to safe and affordable banking products and services. During fiscal 2022, bank on worked to establish 24 bank on certified accounts at local banks and credit unions and through these accounts, nearly 50,000 bank on accounts are open in our five-county area.financial coaching: the United Way Suncoast financial coaching program trains and partners volunteers with individuals who are ready to take control of their financial situation. In the 2022 fiscal year, uws served 97 people with 88% of those people making progress toward their financial goals.individual development accounts: United Way Suncoast's individual development account (ida) is a matched savings account program that helps low-income individuals achieve their goals of buying a home, attending school or opening a business. Eligible participants are required to save money while also acquiring critical financial education and long-term money management skills. During fiscal year 2022, 18 people saved up enough funds to purchase a vehicle. Eviction mitigation: during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, United Way Suncoast devoted $3 million towards addressing the eviction crisis in our five-county region. The eviction defense plan focuses on six main areas across all five counties, including funding rental navigator positions through strategic partners. In the final six months in fy2022, we supported 2,153 individuals with housing services, keeping 1,925 individuals in their home or achieving new or stable housing (89% success rate). In addition, United Way Suncoast also created a housing crisis dashboard that amplified the level of awareness and spurred media coverage about the crisis and our critical support role. And, as one of the region's leading conveners, we've brought together local era program managers to increase cross-county collaboration, and we've taken the lead on providing information and resources to those who need help or want to help.

Support services: United Way Suncoast believes the best Way to help our neighbors is to join them in the neighborhoods. We maintain place-based initiatives with three neighborhood resource centers in tampa (sulphur springs), south st. petersburg (campbell park) and clearwater (north greenwood). Available services at the centers include job searches, resume building, computer access, fax and copying and notary. In addition, we lend grant support and capacity building guidance to dozens of nonprofits that provide support services. Programs include screenings and treatment of dental, vision, and asthma issues for children; access to identified legal supports for adults, nutrition and food assistance, and information/referral services. With all our endeavors, we insist the services be delivered with dignity. This network of services is provided to help individuals/families move past immediate needs to fully participate in United Way Suncoast's priority areas of early learning, youth success and financial stability. Emergency food and shelter program: in march 2022, the local manatee emergency food and shelter board, managed by uws, allocated $455,002 to agencies. Funding is used to supplement feeding, sheltering (including transitional sheltering) and rent/mortgage and utility assistance efforts. The spending period for these funds is november 1, 2021, through april 30, 2023. The following local recipient organizations (lro's) were awarded funding for this work: meals on wheels+; feeding tampa bay; the salvation army of manatee; hope family services; and turning points. Uws also invested $10,000 in supporting the tampa bay network to end hunger in its management of over $3 million in efsp funding for hillsborough and pinellas counties for the same period.volunteer support: volunteers support much of the work that is done both internally at United Way as well as externally through our various programs and partners. In fiscal 2022, United Way Suncoast led 3,017 volunteers to devote 29,114 hours to 55 unique nonprofit organizations in our five-county region. This includes a successful week of caring effort in april that saw 463 volunteers complete 53 projects for 26 nonprofit organizations. The 1,058 hours they devoted during week of caring held a value of $30,195. For the year, the work translates to $871,964 of volunteer support delivered back into our community.

Donor designated contributions: contributions to United Way that donors direct to specific 501(c)(3) agencies.

Youth success: this initiative revolves around a $2.8 million investment into 21 programs focused on youth success over the next three years in hillsborough and pinellas county where our alice (asset limited, income constrained, employed) families live. These investments include funding for a number of programs with a track record of steering youth to success, including boys & girls clubs, big brothers/big sisters, starting right, now and friends of the children. Of course, our never-ending focus on stewardship has led us to take a deeper look at the impact of our youth success work. With the help of research from careersource tampa bay, the education team has initiated a comprehensive assessment of the programmatic work. Its research already has identified and streamlined key factors in the youth success area: academic success, financial literacy, social/emotional learning, health and wellness and career exploration. Careersource will continue to conduct research to identify key organizations and contacts in each county and their roles in each segment of the youth success framework. It will publish a report defining the youth success landscape within and across the five-county footprint, and it will convene stakeholders to discuss youth success and to foster support and engagement from other organizations. The goal over the next 12-24 months is to develop a customized youth success framework for each county and implement it no later than 2024 as we prepare for the next round of multi-year community investment funding.