United Way Worldwide

United Way is a worldwide network in 40 countries and territories, including more than 1,200 local organizations in the U.S. United Way works to advance the common good, creating opportunities for a better life for all by focusing on the three key building blocks of education, income and health and recruiting people and organizations who bring the passion, expertise and resources needed to get things done.  LIVE UNITED® is a call to action for everyone to become a part of the change. For more information about United Way, please visit: http://LIVEUNITED.org. 

United Way Worldwide has committed to working to engage state and community leaders across the country in an effort to ensure that every young person is supported from birth through adulthood and emerges ready for college, work, and life.  United Ways serve as community catalysts that can mobilize institutions and individuals to move this agenda forward. 

As part of the Ready by 21 Partnership, United Way Worldwide is:

• Educating, informing, and engaging leaders about the Ready by 21 approach
• Developing and adapting tools to help leaders build diverse coalitions, engage in effective planning, identify critical data needs, and design strategies to address areas of need
• Building our capacity to support to local United Ways across the country as they implement a birth-to-adulthood approach to supporting children and youth. 

Grant resources are being used to provide learning opportunities and develop/adapt tools that United Ways throughout the system can use to support their efforts to work across the birth-to-21 continuum. Funds are also supporting challenge grants and technical assistance to 5-10 local United Ways in the Southeastern United States to help them address internal organizational capacity needs related to working across the birth-to-21 age continuum. In the spring of 2010, UWW awarded grants to five local United Ways:  Atlanta, GA; Cincinnati, OH; Louisville, KY; Richmond, VA; and Chattanooga, TN.

Some additional resources from United Way Worldwide:

Common Good Forecaster: http://liveunited.org/pages/common-good-forecaster

Voices for the Common Good: http://liveunited.org/blog/entry/voices-for-the-common-good-america-speaks-out-on-education

Strengthening Families Toolkit: http://strengtheningfamilies.unitedway.org/

Research Supporting the Education Volunteer Call to Action: http://unway.3cdn.net/7c37965ebd90788b20_uqm6bfb9y.pdf