AKRON, Ohio — Each year since United Way of Summit & Medina Counties announced its first set of “Bold Goals” in 2017, the agency has worked to improve outcomes in targeted areas of the community.
At its annual presentation to the community this week at the John S. Knight Center, United Way leaders announced updates to those goals and, for the first time, added goals for Medina County, the agency said in a release.
Developing Bold Goals marked the United Way’s shift from serving as pass-through fundraiser to a business model driven by purpose, the agency said. During the pandemic, United Way focused on serving the community through its Family Resource Centers and 2-1-1 line, both which help people meet basic needs, such as food, shelter and transportation.
United Way also helped distribute $25 million in housing and utility assistance to families through Summit County Cares, the vehicle for allocating government-funded pandemic assistance, said United Way Board Chair Michele Cerminaro.
“Now, we’re going to take what proved most effective in that moment of crisis and expand it across our community to create lasting change,” he said.
Bold Goals by 2028 include:
Bold Goal 1 — This goal remains the same: raise to 65% Akron Public Schools’ third-grade students' reading levels at or above grade level.
Bold Goal 2 — United Way added a component to its Akron Public Schools education goals of raising the high-school graduation rate to 90% and the college and career readiness rate to 60%. Now, United Way will work to ensure 60% of Akron kids are employed or active in extracurricular activities.
Bold Goal 3 — In a partnership with the city of Akron, United Way Financial Empowerment Centers have offered free financial advice, helping residents learn to save, budget and plan. Besides helping 11,000 Summit County residents, the centers will aim to assist 2,500 Medina County residents under this goal.
Bold Goal 4 — United Way will shift from making addiction treatment available in emergency rooms to correcting racial inequities in health care. Battling Summit County’s high mortality rate for Black babies of 15.4 of every 1,000 live births, United Way will work to reduce that to 6 out of every 1,000 births.
The support systems people in need rely on today are often fragmented and difficult to navigate, said United Way of Summit & Medina president and CEO, Jim Mullen. They make poverty easier to live with, perpetuating it.
“Just ask those who are seeking help in our community, and they’ll tell you the system isn’t working. So we need to build a better system,” said Mullen. “We need to target the persistent inequities in our community – like unequal access to health care – and work to correct them.”
Reaching people through the 2-1-1 line and resource centers, and creating “an ecosystem of programs with the client at the center” can help people work toward long-term stability, he said.
“That is how we will accomplish our Bold Goals,” Mullen said.