Community-based Agenda

For more than 50 years, United Way of Southern Nevada has empowered people in need by the caring power of communities. The hungry have been fed. The unemployed have earned a paycheck. The sick have received care. Lives have been improved.

 

But it’s not enough. Problems in our community continue to increase, and new issues develop daily. As society, technology and our own local community keep evolving, circumstances emerge surrounding these economic conditions, innovations and growth.

 

While most of these changes serve our community and keep it moving ahead, others have led to issues that plague individuals and families living right next door to all of us. There are still those without access to health care, children who read or write below grade level and people without homes or jobs, leaving them with the inability to maintain financial stability.

 

These issues affect all of us right here in our own community, where we live, work and play. They are not isolated instances, involving only disadvantaged families and individuals. They are issues that matter to us collectively. We all have a personal stake in creating viable solutions that engage and activate us as community partners to not just address the problems, but rather, engage ourselves in lasting, sustainable transformation.

 

United Way of Southern Nevada is addressing our community’s issues in order to best affect long-term results within our community; we are coming together and forming partnerships to develop lasting solutions.

 

This new approach is defined through the Community-based Agenda.

 

A Community-based Agenda is a shift from the previous, traditional fundraising efforts that supported direct services of “program recipients” exclusively. This new model has expanded to engage, activate and inspire community resources, organizations and individuals to get involved and work together to make positive, lasting changes in community issues.

 

It means more than just delivering a hot meal. It means equipping people with the skills necessary to become financially stable. It means helping others help themselves.

 

It means more than just availability to health care from birth through the senior years. It means tools that aid in navigating the complicated health care system and health care that teaches people to make positive, lifelong choices for themselves.

 

It means more than just day care. It means ongoing early education and child care programs that are curriculum based. It means quality trained and licensed teachers. It means arming people with education and tools to not only flourish themselves, but also to pass on what they have learned to others.

 

It means more than just raising money. It means everyone coming together to share interests, build relationships, and utilize talents, expertise, passions and leadership skills to not only improve individual lives, but also to build a stronger community for everyone in southern Nevada.

 

There are three Priority Areas that serve as the focus under which the issues in our community fall: Access to Healthcare, Commitment to Education and Financial Stability Partnership. The councils place focus on the root causes of the impact areas while working to understand all that's needed to create long-term change, to improve the most lives. By contributing time, money and talents to the issues under each of these impact areas, the cycle of healing begins. Quality of life is improved. Possibilities become reality. Dreams are realized. Lasting change is created.

 

The results of the 2003 Southern Nevada Community Assessment are the foundation for our direction. The Community Assessment pointed to healthcare, education and financial stability as our most pressing needs.  In the spring of 2007, United Way led the effort to identify and report the emerging trends, and reaffirm the 2003 findings to ensure their relevancy today. This research and the study’s key findings are included in the 2007 Southern Nevada Community Assessment.