United Way of Monroe County is looking for volunteers to join our Community Investment team for 2018. Each year, United Way works with for-profit and non-profit partners to raise funds to help move the needle on addressing key issues in Monroe County. Issues such as hunger, homelessness, access to community services, early childhood education and out-of-school time. As an independent local organization, United Way of Monroe County raises funds – with 99% of those funds staying here in our community to improve the lives of individuals and families in need in Monroe County. The decisions on how funds are invested back into the community are made during this Community Investment process.

United Way’s approach is to bring organizations together to solve complex community problems that cannot be solved by any single organization. Based on our recent needs assessment, we are focused on three specific targeted areas – our Impact Initiatives:

• Access to Healthy Food – increasing access to healthy food for the food insecure
• Supporting Working Families – increasing access to high-quality pre-k and after-school programs
• Help When Needed Most – providing individuals and families in crisis with improved access to community services such as shelter or disaster services

Local nonprofits submit applications to United Way proposing how they will implement a project or program that achieves specific outcomes that align with one of these three initiatives. United Way then works with volunteers from the community to determine in which programs we should be investing to achieve the greatest change in our community.

United Way is now looking for volunteers to join us in this community investment process. Volunteers must have access to email and the internet, and will be engaged in volunteer activities from February through April. We are recruiting volunteers for two types of panels:

• A Finance Panel – for volunteers who have a financial background and are comfortable reviewing financial documents. This panel does a preliminary review of agency applications. Volunteers do much of the work independently on their own schedule. There are then two meetings as a group; one at the beginning and the other at the end of the review period. Most of the work of this panel will occur in February and early March. Click here to learn more or to register.
• Program Panels – for volunteers who will review the proposed programs from agencies. Volunteers evaluate the program outcomes – or how the program benefits individuals and the community. These volunteers get the opportunity to visit agency sites to see programs in action. This requires a somewhat flexible schedule during the last two weeks in March and the first week in April. A volunteer orientation also takes place on March 8^th. Click here to learn more or to register.