Regional Aspiration is Identified

Overview
United Way for Southeastern Michigan is currently in the second of a three-phase transformation process. This work began in fall 2005 with an unparalleled community engagement and visioning effort, bringing in over 6,500 metro residents to share their voice. Now, United Way is focusing performing data analysis and issue identification to select the vital few areas we can make lasting change on in our region.

Historic Regional Response
This community engagement included over 85 interviews with key civic, business and nonprofit leaders, 25 focus groups and 6,400 survey respondents (including 1,000 through United Way 2-1-1).  As a result, an aspiration was identified by the region which powerfully states:

All people across southeastern Michigan have the educational and economic opportunities needed to succeed and thrive.

In addition, the community indicated that to achieve progress on the aspiration, three broad areas are critical to long-term regional success:

• Educational Preparedness - People are ready to succeed
• Economic Security - People are self-sufficient and secure
• Basic Needs - People are supported in times of crisis

Getting Focused
To ensure lasting change in the areas of educational preparedness and economic security, five long-term development issues have been identified from honing in on the regional voice and research.  The issues identified are educational attainment, asset building, advancing literacy, safe and vibrant neighborhoods, and navigation and access to services.  In addition to our foundational work supporting the community safety net and crisis response needs, United Way will frame its strategic response to its final issues around Economic Self-Sufficiency to ensure we achieve our greatest potential for success across region.

To determine the final issues and key measures United Way will work on, each of the five areas will be tested to see how they align with our mission, align with economic self-sufficiency, create pathways for lasting change and short-term progress, have regional and local application, stand up against available research and resonate with a broad audience, among other standards.

Finally, the region resoundingly noted that to achieve progress, United Way must continuously work to facilitate regional collaboration, bridging racial and other historical divisions, maintaining focus, and demonstrating and measuring ongoing progress.
 
United Way is now diving deeper into research and reaching out to community experts to create a community action plan ready for execution in July 2008.  The final selection of the issues and regional indicators is expected by the end of the fall 2006.

A Visual Look of our current focusing work on Long-Term Development Issues
with respect the Regional Aspiration and broad categories required for progress