United Way Services of Geauga County is publishing a Request for Proposal seeking to fund educational and health and human service organizations in Geauga County.
The 2015 strategy of funding is new for United Way, as it is very focused and aligned with a community impact agenda. While United Way has always funded programs in education, income and health, the current initiatives are aligned with long-term community change efforts. These initiatives came about as a result of key stakeholders in the community coming together to determine what the biggest needs were in Geauga County, and what the best ways were to address these needs.
Three collaborations in education, income and health have been meeting since September of 2014. The collaborations determined the best ways to make the greatest community impact. In education, for example, United Way program funding is designed specifically to increase early school success from preschool to third grade.
Dave Chew, Chairman of the United Way Board, explains the new method of funding. He states, “We have wonderful graduation rates in Geauga of over 96%, so we are doing very well in that area. What we found after looking at the data is that lower income students perform significantly lower than higher income students. We are funding programs to attempt to bridge that gap. We are hoping to provide quality early learning experiences to those children so that don’t start kindergarten behind.”
In addition to trying to bridge the gap in education, United Way is attempting to create a path out of poverty. Funding is designed to increase financial stability and help individuals overcome barriers that keep them from working or advancing within their workplace. “We are trying to create a new system that provides a step-by-step approach for helping people help themselves. We are looking things at a whole new way by talking to Geauga employers and helping them find the most effective solutions to support and retain their workforce,” says Chew.
Improving the health of Geauga residents through substance abuse prevention and treatment is another target for funding. Geauga County, like many areas across Ohio, is suffering from the epidemic of opiate addiction. The ripple effect of families being destroyed has created a burden on health and human service agencies. Dave Chew says that while treatment is a primary need, we also need to get back to prevention. He explains, “Prevention dollars for substance abuse have been cut year after year. We need to be doing more education and prevention among our children to stop this behavior before it starts.”
Funding proposals can be found at www.uwsgc.org.
