Welcome to our first of edition of A United Way Forward. Our vision is a Queensland where all individuals and families achieve their human potential through education, income stability and healthy lives. To achieve this we partner with some very generous corporations who understand in a very strategic way, that doing good is good for business. Our expertise and their generosity of time and money (volunteering and donating) has resulted in a return on investment evident by the delivery of measurable outcomes in local communities around Queensland – together we have made a difference.

Our corporate team volunteering program – Corporate Connect – has increased three fold from previous years and we find we are connecting our corporate partners to the community at least once a week. The highly articulate scientists and engineers of EMC learned about the special challenges facing children with language disorders at Glenleighden School and in return painted the ground floor class room walls providing the children and the school  community with a fresh revitalized environment in which to learn. The team from the AMP Foundation learned about the challenges families face in providing education for disabled young people while being able to fix, repair, clean, catalogue and sort the resources used by Noah’s Ark resource centre – a service available to those in need all over Queensland.

And Gadens Lawyers built a beautiful garden for the homeless young women who are supported by Othila’s young women’s housing and support service. As Jill McKay, Manager at Othila’s exclaims: “Our young women deserve a well presented and safe place to visit when seeking out and using our services. Our funding doesn’t extend to our garden. And now thanks to Gadens we have a herb garden, a nice place to consult under the mango tree and we can now compost and have pet worms!”

This year we have also launched our Community Impact strategy.

Through our workplace giving program United Way raises funds to distribute to those in need in the community. Traditionally these funds have been distributed to organizations that will use funds for a project that will have a direct impact/ benefit on their client group.

We are still keeping this model but have progressed to a model that addresses the causes of community issues around education, health and income stability. Our Allocations Committee, Chaired by Ian Maynard, Director of United Way Queensland is for the first time in a position to provide project funds over a period of years to worthwhile projects that not only address a community issue (as opposed to a project that delivers an outcome to clients) but also can demonstrate the partnerships with other community organizations such as business and government. Under this model the project outcome must be able to demonstrate a shift in the existence of the community issue – measurable change at the root cause.

In future issues we will celebrate not only the funding allocations but the tangible results. In the meantime enjoy our first issue.

 Sandra Nugent CEO