UNITED WAY OF CASS-CLAY

Programs: Agency and program community investments:united for educationthrough this partnership, we invest in opportunities for children to attend high quality early childhood education experiences that ensure they are prepared for their first day of kindergarten. We invest in school and after school programs that create safe, engaging places for struggling or at-risk children to learn. Finally, we invest in parents to teach them the skills they need to help their children and families succeed. Specifically, united way invested in programs in three impact areas of education:1. Early childhood education2. Out of school time programming3. Parent/guardian educationall funded programs work towards common goals using shared outcome and indicators, providing the ability to speak about the impact collectively. Taken together, united way's funding strategy is focused, innovative and research driven. This collaborative effort is now entering its second year; united way is now receiving aggregate data from our partners that will allow us to set benchmarks and scale interventions that are showing positive outcomes. A complete list of community partners for the united for education collaborative can be found at www. Unitedwaycassclay. Org united for healththrough this partnership, we invest in opportunities for children and families to have access to behavioral health services. Strong communities are built on healthy families. Our investments improve the health of our community by helping children and adults learn healthy behaviors that will help them to lead productive lives. These investments focus primarily on behavioral and mental health. We also provide limited funding of programs focused on physical health. These strategies are based in prevention and work to boost the effectiveness of our other investments in education and income stability. These services are crucial to family stability and play an integral role to a child's success in a school environment. All funded programs work towards common goals using shared outcome and indicators, providing the ability to speak about the impact collectively. Taken together, united way's funding strategy is focused, innovative and research driven. This collaborative effort is now entering its second year; united way is now receiving aggregate data from our partners that will allow us to set benchmarks and scale interventions that are showing positive outcomes. A complete list of community partners for the united for health collaborative can be found at www. Unitedwaycassclay. Org basic needsin 2014, united way of cass-clay also invested in nonprofit programs providing specific program services in four impact areas of basic needs: 1. Food security: ensuring individuals and families in need have access to feeding programs2. Sheltering: providing immediate refuge for individuals and families who are homeless3. Safety: ensuring children and families have access to protective services 4. Vulnerable individuals: providing opportunities for individuals of all abilities to lead productive livesvolunteers from cass and clay counties who serve on the united way of cass-clay board of trustees, the community investment committee, and the community investment review panels oversee the allocations process and recommend levels of funding for our partner agencies and programs. One hundred and seven community investment review panel volunteers reviewed applications from agencies seeking funding and participated in site visits and dialogue with directors and program coordinators. Following their reviews, the recommendations were further developed by the volunteer-led community investment committee and final funding recommendations were submitted to and approved by the united way of cass-clay board of trustees. Three times per year agencies submit outcome reports to united way of cass-clay staff that outline client progress and demonstrate the lasting change they are creating in the cass-clay community. A complete list of community partners receiving funding through the basic needs funding category can be found at www. Unitedwaycassclay. Org

imagination libraryunited way of cass-clay partners with the dollywood foundation to provide free age-appropriate books once per month to children ages 0-5 in cass and clay counties. The program is free to families because of united way of cass-clay donor dollars and any family with a child between the ages of zero and five is eligible to enroll in the program. Research shows that children who receive imagination library books have higher literacy levels and are at a lower risk for needing remedial literacy education upon entering kindergarten than students that do not receive imagination library books. During 2014, on average 9,019 books were mailed per month and 105,082 books were mailed to the homes of children ages 0-5 throughout cass and clay counties. United way of cass-clay was the first organization to partner with imagination library in north dakota. Since 2003, it has grown to 41 affiliates in north dakota and 38 in minnesota. Share a story family literacy eventeach spring, united way of cass-clay collaborates with prairie public broadcasting and the fargo park district to coordinate share a story, a family literacy event that promotes a love for reading and encourages caregivers to take an active and early part in their children's literacy. In june of 2014, 1,333 children and families attended the event and had the opportunity to meet costumed characters from pbs kids programs, select a free book to take home, and experience many other activities centered on literacy.

community grantsunited for jefferson neighborhoodin response to a high number of referrals to cass county social services stemming from the jefferson neighborhood, a group of community leaders asked united way to convene a group of nonprofit professionals working with individuals and families in this neighborhood. The jefferson neighborhood is located in fargo and refers to the area of main avenue (north) to 13th avenue south (south) and university drive (east) to 25th street south (west). United way continues to engage, convene and lead more than 20 organizations from the nonprofit, government and public sectors to collaboratively identify the needs of families in the neighborhood and opportunities to collectively meet those needs. Through a series of facilitated meetings and planning sessions, they collaboratively identified four common goals:1. Prepare children entering kindergarten for academic success2. Create safe, stable, and affordable housing options3. Support culturally appropriate programming for residents4. Improve neighborhoodto support the goals, united way has invested in several core strategies including:- parent engagement and literacy programs for targeted families- child care scholarships for income-eligible families to receive quality early childhood education- programs designed to increase attendance for identified students- school-based mentor programs for students in needas part of united way's dedication to investing in educational opportunities for students in the jefferson neighborhood, we are partnering with a nonprofit organization to implement a research based attendance improvement program called "check & connect. " this program is showing great improvement for many participating students' attendance outcomes. Results from the program show: -67% drop in excused absences-73% drop in unexcused absences-78% drop in tardies-54% drop in behavior reportsschool supply drivethe united way school supply drive provides students in need with a new backpack and grade-appropriate supplies so they can start school in the fall confident, ready to learn and prepared to succeed. In 2014, we partnered with hundreds of businesses and individuals and engaged more than 450 volunteer to pack and distribute 5,175 backpacks filled with school supplies. Results from the effort are-children represented 48 schools in cass county, nd and clay county, mn-82% reported being eligible for free/reduced lunch *this is the measure used by schools to determine poverty fill the dome student-led food drivein the fall of 2014 the 8th annual fill the dome event was coordinated by local high school students with a goal of filling the entire floor of the fargodome (80,000 sq. Ft) with food for local food pantries. When fill the dome was complete, the youth had collected over 443,000 meals for individuals and families in cass and clay county. United way of cass-clay contributed financially to the project and also provided in-kind support through communication materials and public relations support. Ymca homeless summer programmingduring the summer of 2014, churches united for the homeless had a large number of homeless youth residing at the shelter. In response to the need for summer programming to provide opportunities for youth to be engaged throughout the summer, the ymca of cass and clay counties partnered with moorhead public schools and the boys & girls club of the red river valley to provide summer recreational activities and transportation to youth residing at the shelter. Programming included: swimming passes, sports, camp outings, etc. Summer backpack pilot programduring the summer of 2014, john deere electronic solutions partnered with united way of cass-clay and the great plains food bank to continue the backpack program for students at elementary schools in fargo, nd. The program provided six meals to a student over the weekend for twelve weeks (june-august). This is unique to the fargo community in that community organizations continued to fulfill an unmet need of students having access to food over the weekends during the summer. In order to accomplish the pilot, john deere electronic solutions partnered with united way of cass-clay, charism, the salvation army and the boys & girls club of the red river valley to ensure families had access and opportunities to receive the meals during the summer months. In addition to providing backpacks of food at community organizations, mobile feeding sties were implemented at neighborhood parks. Backpacks and meals were provided to students at these mobile feeding sites. John deere electronic solutions provided $25,000 in financial resources and volunteers to ensure that up to 500 backpacks of food could be provided to the schools each week for the entire twelve weeks of the summer program. Project community connectin 2014, the fm coalition for homeless persons coordinated two project community connect events which are designed to connect homeless and imminently homeless persons who face barriers to services including mental health services, medical services, haircuts, dental care, educational opportunities, housing assistance, employment, etc. In addition to connecting persons who are homeless to services, the event helps to better connect service providers to each other and other sectors of society to the problem of homelessness. The event has become a best practices standard around the nation and is a part of the fargo ten-year plan to end long-term homelessness. United way of cass-clay contributed financially to the event so that the services could be available to homeless and imminently homeless persons in the cass-clay community. The essentials of nonprofit administration trainingunited way of cass-clay collaborates with minnesota state university moorhead (msum) continuing studies to coordinate the essentials of nonprofit administration course which is a comprehensive nine-month training program for nonprofit professionals that addresses critical issues faced by nonprofit organizations today. The goal of the program is to increase the long-term success of local non-profit agencies and provide training and capacity-building for local non-profit leaders, staff and board members. United way of cass-clay also provides scholarships for non-profit leaders to attend the training.

childcare scholarship programin calendar year 2014, the united way of cass-clay board of trustees approved $200,000 in an effort to increase the availability of high quality early childhood care (ages birth to five) to low income families. Families who have lower income have difficulty paying for the cost of high quality care. Additionally, childcare centers do not receive complete reimbursement for the true cost of providing care, thus they are losing money for providing care to lower income families. The programs provides an incentive pool for the four high quality childcare centers currently funded by united way to increase the number of low income families they served. The four centers are: 1) ymca of cass and clay counties2) ywca a child's world3) nokomis childcare centers4) sendcaa childcare center united way staff worked collaboratively with the four centers to develop criteria and a formula for dividing the available dollars based upon overall capacity and the percentage of low income families that each center serves. In order to accommodate the administrative work of participating in the pilot, as well as provide staff training and professional development, united way provided each of the organizations a base funding amount of $25,000. All organizations utilize a common formula to determine the true cost of doing business for their organization; united way dollars then cover the gap in funding from the amount received from families. Reimbursements are provided on a quarterly basis to each participating provider. Income stability initiative following research on community needs related to income stability, the united way of cass-clay board of trustees approved the following core issue areas inside our income stability funding framework: 1. Supportive and affordable housing2. Workforce development3. Financial services. Funding for the three impact areas will begin in 2015 through an open rfp process. All funded programs will work towards common goals using shared outcome and indicators, providing the ability to speak about the impact collectively. Taken together, united way's funding strategy is focused, innovative and research driven.