Hazel Lehtonen | Jennifer Granados

2015

Research Project – The Face of United Way

Live United

It’s a credo.

A mission.

A challenge.

A goal.

A call to action.

Table of ContentsIntroduction......................................................................................................................3

History of United Way......................................................................................................3

News and Newspaper Accounts...................................................................................5

Social Media Accounts.................................................................................................6

Our Research...................................................................................................................6

Original Scope..............................................................................................................6

Challenges....................................................................................................................7

Interviews with Staff and Associates................................................................................8

Interview highlights:......................................................................................................8

Lessons we learned about interviewing........................................................................9

Five Tests of Effective Interviews...............................................................................10

Administration and Support Services – Interview Transcripts.....................................11

Finance.......................................................................................................................11

Interview: Kolette Robinson, Finance Associate.....................................................11

2-1-1...........................................................................................................................14

Cami Anderson, 2-1-1 Center Manager..................................................................14

CIS/HMIS....................................................................................................................17

Anne Beer, VP of Income & Housing Stability........................................................17

Community Impact......................................................................................................20

Carrie McKee, Executive VP...................................................................................20

Paula Munger, Director of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.................................23

Education....................................................................................................................27

Deana Hunt, VP of Education.................................................................................27

Jeff Greene – El Paso County Administrator..............................................................30

United Way Values.........................................................................................................31

Advocate.....................................................................................................................31

Sustainable.................................................................................................................31

Passion.......................................................................................................................32

Integrity.......................................................................................................................32

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Respect......................................................................................................................32

Excellence..................................................................................................................33

Recommendations for United Way Orientation Program...............................................33

Six Elements of a Successful Onboarding Program...................................................35

How Pikes Peak United Way Compares with other United Way Branches................37

Reference Guide/ United Way Program Descriptions....................................................37

Cradle to Career Initiative...........................................................................................37

Continuum of Care Initiative:......................................................................................38

Decade of Difference Initiative:...................................................................................38

Education Programs...................................................................................................38

Income Programs.......................................................................................................39

Health Programs.........................................................................................................39

Appendix A: Partner Agencies and Community Members.............................................40

Community Voices.........................................................................................................45

Works Cited....................................................................................................................45

Picture Credits:...........................................................................................................49

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Introduction

History of United WayWhat we know as United Way may have had its beginnings even earlier than 1922, as originally stated on the Pike’s Peak United Way’s website. The movement is traceable to the “Charity Organization Society of Denver” (COS), which was founded by Frances Wisebart Jacobs, the Rev. Myron W. Reed, Msgr. William J. O’Ryan, Dean H. Martyn Hart and Rabbi William S. Friedman in the Denver, Colorado area in 1887. Although these individuals did not by themselves define the form that charitable giving would take, they were instrumental in the formation of United Way as we know it.

Frances was a schoolteacher before migrating to Colorado and was passionate about public education and public health. As well as organization the COS of Denver, her passionate efforts helped form the basis for the founding of what would later become the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, the first hospital in the world to accept only destitute tuberculosis patients. Her passion for public education and public health are still seen today in the vision of the United Way.

The Rev. Myron Reed was a clergyman of considerable public influence during the post-Civil War populist movement. By 1886, he was already advocating in Denver for an “associated charities movement.” (Combining Charity, 1886) Rev. Reed had enormous passion for helping the working poor. In one published sermon, he lamented the idea of the specialized factory work or miner who had become displaced, saying: “To surrender one special skill and learn another requires time; without food a man will starve in nine days. Nine days is not enough time to learn a new trade.” (Trials of Tramps, 1886) In another published sermon, Reed passionately declared “At present we must struggle along together.” (Talking of Tramps, 1886) Reed

had a passion for the predicament of the working poor, one which is still seen today in the heart of United Way.

Dean H. Martyn Hart was a young clergyman originally from London, England. His first visit to Colorado was a pass through Denver in 1872. After hearing his visiting sermons, the vestry repeatedly requested him to be their rector and finally won him over. Dean Hart ended up frequently at odds with the overseeing Bishop, fellow clergy and on several occasions the press. At one point, the church is alleged to have been attacked by an angry mob. (Woodward, 2001) Despite having been at odds with members of his own sect, Hart joined hands with other clergy in the creation of the Charity

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Organization Society of Denver. Interestingly, whereas the Rev. Myron Reed was constantly quoted in the press, Hart claimed never to read the news.

Like Hart, William J. O’Ryan was also from England. He was also familiar with English fundraising methods, a skill which he would offer to this new collective. The early Charity Organization Society of Denver would have needed this sort of expertise as they collected funds to help at least 10 agencies, totaling $21,700 in funds. (Abel, Shenefield, & Lund, 1970)

Rabbi William S. Friedman shared Frances Wisebart Jacobs’ interest in public health and along with her, helped found the National Jewish Hospital in Denver in 1899. As one Denver observer keenly stated in 1902, “If a new hospital is wanted or a new college is wanted, it is the church people of the locality who are called upon to meet the expense of it.” (Morton, 2004) Rabbi Friedman, a reformer, was part of this charity evolution.

This group was very diverse and came from different backgrounds but from the very start, all were united around a common goal – fulfilling the unmet needs of their community. By 1891, early officers and members had been meeting regularly in the basement of the local courthouse every Monday to attempt to collect and distribute funds for charitable purposes. (19th Annual Denver City Directory, 1891) This was a centralized effort to support local charity efforts in the community.

Today’s United Way was known as the “Community Chest” for many years. By 1929, it had spread to a national movement which raised $71,978,593.00 for charity, with 330 cities and towns participating. (Community Chest Proceeds Raised in Several Towns, 1929) It is unclear exactly how the national movement’s finances and distributions to local communities were handled at that time. The Pikes Peak area Community Chest held many fundraising campaigns locally, which were organized as “divisions”, including the Women’s Division, the County Division, the Employee Division, the Small Business Division, Students and Organizations Division, the Professional Division, the Air Force Academy division, the ENT Air Force Base Division, and the Fort Carson Division. (Community Chest Reports 67 Per Cent Achieved, 1960). Numerous old newspaper articles in the Colorado Springs Gazette detail almost play-by-play updates on fundraising efforts.

By 1972, charity campaign contributions raised $775,000 for the Pikes Peak Region. It was known during that the as the “United Fund” and supported 19 different community agencies. (Community Giving Has Long History Here, 1972). According to The Gazette, the local branch of the Pikes Peak United Way at its conception was called the “Pikes Peak Social Welfare Fund”, started on June 20, 1922. In 1923, the name was changed to the “Pikes Peak Community Chest”. In 1961, it was incorporated. In 1972, The Boys Club, The Colorado Springs Day Nursery, the Visiting Nurse Association, the Salvation Army, the YWCA and YMCA, The Boy Scouts, The Girl Scouts, and the American Red Cross were all member agencies.

The Pikes Peak United Way’s educational initiatives may have also been influenced by its longstanding relationships with local educational institutions in the area. In 1961, the President of Colorado College,

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Dr. Louis T. Benezet also served as the President of the Community Chest. (Benezet Named President of Community Chest, 1961). Thomas B. Doherty, for which Doherty High School is named, was also active with the Community Chest at that time and served as a Community Chest “agency designee” for the YMCA.

News and Newspaper AccountsReporting on local United Way activities has been continual throughout its local history, with local reporters often publishing reports of the organization’s fundraising efforts. Numerous small “blurbs” appeared in the Gazette Telegraph throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. The United Way has a history of genuine efforts to be transparent and accountable to its donors. In a Gazette Telegraph article from 1977, Jerry Smith said “It is really important for people making contributions to know where their dollars are going. If they don’t know, they are reluctant to give.” (Wade, 1977) The Gazette Telegraph has had a pattern of publishing numbers. One article describes fund allocation decisions as “the suggestions are analyzed mathematically, then divided into statistical categories: the mean, the median and the mean corrected by standard deviation. The corrected mean represents the central tendency of the committee’s recommendations.” (Green, United Way Allocations Committee Designates Funds, 1977) It is not clear whether this has been the choice of the reporter or whether United Way has had much influence in regards to the articles reported. The authors have noted a recent shift in United Way’s public appearance in newspapers to more of a solutions-based approach rather than the prior focus on numbers. Then-CEO explained this: “We’re focusing on issues people want to have remedied and looking at ways to convene the resources and talents of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to solve them.” (Kelley, United Way Focusing on Human Needs, 2008) We find that the United Way is using the very important HR principle of “task identity” on the public, helping the general public to see more of a connection between their efforts and contributions and the real impact of these. Articles in more recent times also reflect more emotion as well.

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Social Media AccountsLike most other organizations, United Way has kept up with the times in terms of adopting the use of social media. However, it was mildly disheartening to see only 1,965 “likes” on their Facebook page. Similarly, many of the United Way events, despite what appear to be honest efforts, are not receiving many “likes” and most are not being “shared”. By comparison, the Mile High United Way page has 2,379 “likes”, although the Denver metropolitan area has a much larger population. When the authors examined how both agencies were using social media such as Facebook, we found that although the Pikes Peak United Way truly takes a collective approach, it may be doing so at the expense of the personal narratives such as Emily’s story, which was readily linked from the Mile High United Way Facebook page. Although the program is not limited to just Emily, her smiling face and statement of “Bridging the Gap has helped me map out a future,” evokes emotion in the viewer. (A Chance at a Real Future, 2015) The authors suggest the Pikes Peak United Way consider a way to add these sorts of personal narratives while maintaining their “collective impact” approach. It should be noted that these personal narratives can be generated either from staff within United Way or from people whose lives have been impacted by the work that United Way does.

Our Research

Original ScopeOur sponsor for this project was Amy Dinofrio, the newly-appointed COO of United Way, a major non-profit organization which is the “hub” of volunteering and community service in the Pikes Peak Region. We met with Amy on February 27th.

What Amy described she wanted was for us to consolidate numerous mildly disjointed materials that they had put together for staff. This included United Way’s Code of Ethics, their Orientation Guide, the Pikes Peak United Way Handbook and their Onboarding Plan. Furthermore, she also provided us with three separate PowerPoint presentations that she wanted edited, consolidated and potentially added to. She told us that she wanted our help presenting “the face of United Way”. She gave us a card with United Way’s personal values, A.S.P.I.R.E. This stood for Advocate, Sustainable, Passion, Integrity, Respect, and Excellence. At first, there was a lot of confusion between us in regards to how exactly did she want A.S.P.I.R.E. values to be reflected in an employee handbook of policies and procedures. However, upon looking at the PowerPoint slides that she had given us, it became clearer. Several of the slides appeared

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to have placeholders in them for personal stories of employees and how they had done work that was aligned with these values. She was provided with a copy of a “yearbook” done by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office showing all their history, staff and departments. We almost feared that by giving her this, we would be signing ourselves up for an unmanageable project. However, we felt that our primary obligation should be to provide an excellent finished work for the organization, rather than fretting about the grade. As the semester went on, we encountered a handful of major roadblocks which prevented us from doing the work that we wanted and this greatly hampered our ability to provide a good finished product to United Way.

ChallengesOne of the challenges we encountered was that staff at United Way were so busy that it was difficult to find time to meet with them that was not an impediment to their normal duties. Amy Dinofrio, as the new COO and former Director of HR is still covering many of her prior duties with the company. We estimate conservatively that she is doing the work of at least two people, possibly three or four.

The first in-person meeting was held with Pam on Thursday, January 28th with just Hazel and Pam. It was a brief meeting, simply explaining the fact that the purpose of this was to do a research project for a local business and to tie this project in to some general HR principle(s). Pam was provided with a copy of the prior research project done for Melissa Marts at the Women’s Resource Agency, which proved to be invaluable as Melissa provided a very excellent reference regarding the quality of prior work. Pam had some ideas as to how we could be of use but needed to verify with Amy. After a few days, she set us up with an initial meeting with Amy on February 11th. Amy told us that she could generate an enormous amount of work, interviewing the entire United Way staff and we started out optimistic that with this commitment early in the semester, we were in a good position.

On Friday, February 13th, Amy emailed us the initial United Way orientation materials that we were to work on revising and consolidating. We had a follow up meeting scheduled for the following Friday, February 20th. The day before the follow up meeting, Pam contacted us to let us know that it would need to be cancelled and rescheduled. Pam initially set us up for February 25th. That ended up being cancelled and rescheduled as well. We were finally able to meet with Amy again on February 27th. Due to her busy schedule, our time with her was brief. It took some time to cement an understanding of what Amy really wanted.

The core of our work involved interviewing most of the staff at United Way, which is approximately 30+ people, as well as potentially their Board of Trustees, who are leaders in the community. This was very difficult to coordinate with this many people’s schedules for interviews, especially high-level staff that were expected to be very busy.

Before granting us the actual interviews, Amy wanted to see some of our work. We may have misunderstood what was meant by “work”. We gathered the disjointed orientation materials we had been given (all Microsoft Word documents) and consolidated these into one 50-page document which was provided to Amy and Pam. At this point, we did not do much editing to the material itself. Our main focus was on consolidating the existing material. The initial materials Pam had given us had a table of contents that was no longer even functional, with “error! bookmark not defined”, showing up where there should have been page numbers. Fonts and spacing were also inconsistent. We used headings and subheadings in Microsoft Word in order to be able to use Word’s automatic “table of contents” function. This enabled the use of Word’s built-in navigation pane as well, which we felt would make the

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material easier to update since the user can use the navigation pane to click through to any section of the document, rather than having to scroll through pages to find it. It also enables entire sections to be rearranged, which we felt would be useful. We also changed fonts and added a cover page. We took the few scattered PowerPoint slides and consolidated these into one large presentation. While doing this, we noticed many “placeholders” which indicated they were for a personal narrative regarding United Way’s ASPIRE values. When we saw this, it became a little more evident what Amy was seeking from us. She mentioned wanting the finished product in Microsoft PowerPoint for the presentation, and either Microsoft Word or Adobe Publisher for the finished orientation guide materials themselves. The authors have access to all of the programs in Adobe Creative Suite 2, however Adobe Publisher is not one of these products, so we opted to work within Microsoft Word, with which we are familiar.

Out of over 30 interviews we were expecting, the authors were only granted seven phone interviews, of which only six were successfully conducted. We were given pre-set times to call each staff member. One staff member was unavailable at the schedule time of our call, thus we were not able to interview that person. We developed scripted questions for these but found that the brief interviews themselves were insufficient to find sufficient material showing United Way’s ASPIRE values. United Way is an agency well over 100 years old. After doing a considerable amount of research into the history and background of the organization, we believed that many of the values of the movement at its beginning would remain fairly constant throughout its development, with minor variations. Given this, since we were not granted the interviews promised at the beginning of the project, we looked to old newspaper articles to find information about how United Way appeared in the eyes of outsiders. We believe this gave us clues as to how the agency held itself to its values over time.

We had a great deal of difficulty in drawing out specific instances of the ASPIRE values while interviewing the few staff members that we were able to interview. The values themselves are really “big picture” concepts, thus it was difficult to condense these down into specific one-time actions. In fact, we did not really find specific one-time examples. What we did find were patterns of repeated behavior.

Interviews with Staff and Associates

Interview highlights:Our interview with Kolette Robinson was extremely insightful. Although Kolette does not hold a top management position, this staff member was able to truly visualize and articulate United Way’s mission. She is living this same vision in her own life. A theme that arose from within the October 2014 meeting notes when the Cradle To Career task force was in its early stages was that leaders were looking for positive narratives from the community. The debate ensued regarding who is responsible for creating this positive narrative.

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The consensus from this meeting was that every day people from all walks of life can have a powerful influence within the community, simply by following and modeling these positive values. We found that Kolette truly exemplifies United Way’s advocate value. On her own time, she works with inmates in Pueblo to help them re-enter society after serving their sentences. Kolette recently helped one former inmate reunite with a long lost family member. This inmate had come from an abusive family member, had been caught up in human trafficking, and desperately needed a blood relative that she could connect to and trust. Kolette happened to know this woman’s relative and was able to step up and make a positive change in this person’s life by helping to reunite the former inmate with her long-lost family member. This is as close as we got to a specific, one-time event. However, this was still part of a larger pattern of Kolette’s continual efforts to advocate for the disadvantaged and downtrodden.

We found the United Way value of passion in Imagination Library Director Paula Munger. Munger, who started the local program out of her own home, had so much faith in the new program that they were signing children up to receive books before they even had the donations lined up to cover them. Paula was persistent in getting the program off the ground, using her personal connection with one of the Pikes Peak Library District executives. The program was successful enough that United Way stepped forward as the new sponsor for the program and absorbed this program.

We found the United Way value of respect by interviewing County Administrator Jeff Greene. He was interviewed by Hazel since he is also a personal contact of hers from her time working at El Paso County. Mr. Greene was cordial and relaxed and gave a concerted effort to attempt to help in our research by answering our questions as best as he could, as well as attempting to put us in touch with one of the other board members, Stephannie Finley. It should be noted however that the project due date arrived before we were able to interview her.

Lessons we learned about interviewing In the course of our interviews, we found it evident that people generally open up more when they are made to feel comfortable and if they feel a personal connection to the person interviewing them. The “best” interview we had was the interview with Kolette Robinson. When Hazel opened up to Kolette about her own experience at her prior employer, Kolette was able to feel more of a connection. Although the questions were generated ahead of time, we found that some deviation was necessary in order for the interview to flow more smoothly. However, in many of the interviews we felt we did not get as much information as we would have liked. Given this, we conducted research in regards to how to conduct successful interviews. We found that much of the information available centers around interviewing for jobs. We focused on research on the other side of the table – the person conducting the interview.

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After conducting the interviews, it became apparent that we did not have enough background information on the Cradle to Career initiative to ask the right questions. Some of this information was later gleaned from documents posted to the United Way website, however this initiative was ongoing and the most recent information had not been posted yet. Also, many of the key players were outside of United Way and we did not obtain their contact information. The information in regards to the initiative was very general so it was difficult to determine specific questions to ask to bring out the United Way ASPIRE values within the staff. As mentioned, the behaviors that were described to us were really ongoing patterns of behavior rather than specific, one-time accomplishments. Author and journalist M.L. underscores the importance of gaining as much specific background information as possible before the interview in order to ask the right questions. Says Stein: “None of us can know everything, but we can dig into reference material and tap sources to fill in the gaps in our knowledge about a subject we are being asked to report on. Such preparation eliminates the chance of asking unfocused questions or those that elicit only yes or no answers.” (Stein, 2002)

Furthermore, there was a lot of variety in the interviews themselves. Based on tone of voice, some of the staff seemed more eager to speak with us than others. Kolette was particularly cordial and wanted to help us with our project. Some of the staff seemed to view our interviews as an interruption to their day. Journalist Stein further states that “Different sources require different approaches.” (Stein, 2002) As our questions were prepared without regard to each staff member’s personality, the interviews may not have gone as well as we had hoped. Another element that we would have liked to have done better was to find a good balance between pre-structured questions, yet enough flexibility to manage the interview similar to a comfortable conversation. Says Columnist Peter Denka, “Write out a list of questions before the interview, then budget a reasonable amount of time for the entire interview... During the interview try to phrase the questions in an informal, conversational manner.” (Denka, 1995). Furthermore, due to the fact that we were really only allotted approximately 15 minutes per interview, we felt a bit rushed and did not always give interviewees sufficient time to contemplate their answers before prompting them. Denka makes a very valuable point regarding this, saying “Give candidates ample time to respond. Thoughtful silence does not mean indecision. Don't rush in with another question to fill that silent period. Remember, the interview is a time for you to listen, not talk. Use responses as a link to new questions.” (Denka, 1995)

Five Tests of Effective Interviews

After conducting the interviews, by combining our personal experiences with the literary research that we conducted, we came up with the following five tests of conducting effective interviews, which neatly fit into the easy-to-remember acronym: “P.A.N.E.L.” The following are the tests:

Prepare – conduct extensive background research on the topic of the interview. For employment interviews in an HR setting, this means finding out information about the interviewee (information which is legal to collect, of course) including a review of the interviewee’s application and resume

Adopt Respondent’s Perspective – Whether for an employment interview, a journalistic interview or witness or investigative interview, it is important to understand the motivations of the interviewee as this will set the tone of the interview. For an investigative interview, the interviewee is likely to be defensive and delving into the most pertinent questions right away may be ill advised.

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Note potential follow up questions - When time is limited, it is easy to forget to follow up on questions previously asked. This can cause the interviewer to miss out on potential chances to gather more information and clarify the answers that may be unclear.

Ease the respondent into the interview – we found that in cases where we were more open about our project and our own experiences, we developed more of a rapport with the interviewee. This was especially apparent in the case of Kolette Robinson, with whom Hazel was able to establish a more personal collection. Kolette went out of her way to attempt to help us with our project. We believe that when interviewees feel more of a personal connection to the interviewer, they produce much more detailed and better answers to questions.

Listen fully to responses – Due to the time-limited nature of our interviews, several times interviewees were interrupted or prompted. Had we had more time for each interview, we believe that allowing more pauses would have produced better and more clear answers from the staff that we interviewed.

Administration and Support Services – Interview Transcripts

Finance

Interview: Kolette Robinson, Finance Associate

Hazel: Hi Kolette, how are you this morning?Kolette: I’m doing well.

Hazel: This is Hazel Lehtonen, I believe Pam told you I was going to call this morning?Kolette: She did.

Hazel: I wanted to make sure this is a good time and you weren’t in the middle of something else.Kolette: Well I am in the middle of something but it is a good time.

Hazel: Ok, ok, well we’ll be reasonably quick here. My partner Jennifer Granados and I are doing a research paper for UCCS and we picked United Way and Amy and Pam agreed to work with us and we want to do a really good project so we’re kind of exploring United Way and what you guys are all about and I kind of have a list of personalized questions and some of them are pretty general, there’s only about 1,2,3,4,5, 6… there’s about 9 of them here and if you’ve got about 15 minutes or less, I just want to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.Kolette: That’s fine.

Hazel: The first question I want to ask is a little bit about yourself. And that was how long have you worked for United Way and have you always worked in this position? I understand, I have you down as “Finance Associate” but I may have the title wrong, so please correct me if I’m wrong.Kolette: That’s correct.

Hazel: Ok, so how long have you worked there and have you always been in that position?Kolette: Just under three years now. Yeah, I started back in October I think of 2012.

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Hazel: And can you hear me okay? I’ve got you on speakerphone because I can type a lot quicker than I can hand write and I wanted to make sure I got all the info. So you might hear some typing in the background. Kolette: It’s fine.

Hazel: Well, how did you get there? What was it that led you to want to work for a non-profit?Kolette: Well, prior to coming here, I was working for a nonprofit. I was working for my church. So I’m not unfamiliar with the nonprofit world. However, the United Way, this type of nonprofit is a little bit different from faith-based so there’s a bit of a difference there but I’ve always had a heart for just helping people. So I tend to always gravitate towards the organization that seeks to help people, in whatever way that looks like.

Hazel: What are your official responsibilities?Kolette: Well, what I do in terms of my finance role is probably 95% of campaign processing. So all the data, entering a lot of data, crediting donors for their payments, payment processes and things like that. That’s the Finance piece of it but I also do the internal communications piece which I think is probably more so what you will be interested in terms of HR perspective and what that entails is right now we’re going towards the quarterly newsletter that we send out to our staff and we have just revised it a little bit and made it a little more engaging and the purpose of it is to help our staff and newcomers that are coming in, to acclimate and orient themselves to the organization by providing them with what our mission, vision and core values are and something from our CEO and then whatever is going on around the building, whatever the departments are doing that they want the rest of the building to know about. There’s just an individualized thing to them, a staff spotlight. Just to get people to learn more about their coworkers and then we’ll have a calendar of events so people will know what’s going on so just some different elements that will help our employees know what’s happening within United Way because everyone is going in different directions although we’re trying to get to the same goal. We want people to be on the same page somewhat.

Hazel: Wow, that is about the best answer I’ve gotten so far. Thank you so much. Now, the next one is kind of related and that is do you have any “unofficial” responsibilities? Things that maybe aren’t officially part of the job title but things that you find yourself doing.Kolette: Still work-related or outside of work?

Hazel: You can take that question wherever you want to go with it. You can tell me about something outside of work, some time when you kind of extended yourself and helped out that was outside of your area. You can take that question wherever you feel you want to go with it. Kolette: Well that’s a pretty broad question but what I do, I volunteer at the prison down at La Vista which is in Pueblo and so I go down there maybe 2-3 times a month and the name of the ministry is called Fulfilling Your Destiny , so what we go down there and do is meet with them and encourage them that even though they’ve made a mistake that’s not the end all, that you can come up from that place and you can better yourself, you can make something of yourself. Because they’ve always been told that they would never be anything or never do anything. And so we want to disrupt that pattern of thinking and help them to realize that if you change the way that you process things, the way that you think you can turn your life around. So that is one thing that I do outside of here. Also within here, we have this thing that we do once a year, called “A Point in Time”, in which we survey the homeless. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it but it’s called “A Point In Time” and so what we do is we’ll pick one day in January usually it’s at the end of the month because that’s the coldest day in the wintertime, we try to pick it so that we get the maximum participation in surveying the homeless.

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So what we do is we’ll pick different places around the town where we know the homeless are going to populate; one of them is the Marian House soup kitchen and we go down there and we just ask them a few questions: “Where did you stay the night before?”, just to get a poll on what our homeless community is doing so that we can find out how to better serve them.

Hazel: This is sort of intended to be more of a one-way interview but since you talked about the prison in Pueblo, I’ll tell you that I used to work for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office from 2005 until 2013 before I left to go back to college to finish my degree. I started out in Records and then was promoted to Administrative Assistant and so we encountered a lot (I didn’t work in the actual jail) but we had.. I don’t know if you know Becky Boerjan (I can’t pronounce her name) but she’s the program coordinator for Gateways Through the Rockies and that’s essentially a rehabilitation program, it’s like a type of work release and what they would do, is people that were in there for petty offenses, she would help them with job skills, they have a GED program, and rather than sit in a cell and feel bad about what they had done, they would come out and they would help us, they would clean the offices and we would help them prepare for getting out. So that really resonated with me. that was a really good answer.Kolette: I have a heart to just give people hope because you know, life just beats up on all of us and everyone needs a second chance. Everybody deserves a second chance. So just letting them see that, just you know, really just I just have a heart to love on people, that’s all.

Hazel: That is wonderful. I remember, we weren’t really supposed to talk too much with them because they’re in there cleaning, and taking out the trash but we could have casual conversations as long as we were very careful and I remember one gentleman talking about he had lined in a chauffeuring job for when he got out and he was very excited about it. So that was really good. And it kind of wants to make me skip ahead to one of the other questions that I had because it’s moments like that which really give you meaning to what you do, when you feel you make a difference in someone’s life, so I want to skip ahead and ask you the other question which I had, which was: If you were to think of a moment when you were at your best, what would that moment be – can you describe it to me? That could be ideally inside United Way, that could be outside if need be because it’s about you. For me, it was great hearing about that guy having a job lined up for when he got out. That wasn’t necessarily part of my position but was something that I got to experience and that was part of my organization looking towards solutions, rather than just punishing people. So that was kind of my finest moment. What was yours?Kolette: There’s been many. One that I probably just really sticks out with me or is just a real strong point, at the prison again there was a young lady had been caught up in human trafficking. And she had been… some of her growing up in an abusive family situation, she was abused by her uncle, she didn’t know who her father was, just a terrible upbringing. It left some insecurities in her life. She was really wanting to reach out to an aunt of hers who had happened to have been, who was at my church and I happened to know who she was, not really who she was but I knew of her so I was able to connect them which made a huge difference in her life because she was trying to find someone in her bloodline that she could connect with, to find some type of identity; and so that was a big thing, just helping her connect in a relationship, that could help change her life. Now I haven’t seen her since and I haven’t really talked to her aunt but I’m just believing that it was a good situation for both of them.

Hazel: Wow, that is phenomenal. The other questions might seem almost boring now. I need to shift back to the other one. This is more related to inside United Way, what you do as a Finance Associate there. What is your favorite aspect of this position? What is the part of your workday that you really enjoy the most?

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Kolette: It’s probably just the sense of accomplishment when I’ve completed a project. What I do is in the, in some eyes can be very monotonous and mundane. But when you have a big project and you need to have so much done, processed by a certain time because it affects so many other departments and what they have to do to complete their jobs. And that’s a sense of accomplishment. So I appreciate that.

Hazel: Ok. So kind of that sense of task completion, knowing that you completed something and knowing how that impacts other departments as well. Is there one particular department that you feel you impact more than any others?Kolette: Yes, our resource development department. They can take the numbers that we put in and gauge what they need to do, what bill is left outstanding, who our top givers are.

Hazel: What is the biggest challenge of your position? What is the hardest thing about your job?Kolette: Well I work on spreadsheets all day long and some of the spreadsheets, the numbers and the verbiage on them is extremely small so I’m trying to make sure, I can tell you, I have changed my prescription twice since working here. [laughter]. So that is probably the most challenging part of it. Just the working on the spreadsheets constantly.

Hazel: Well that’s an ok challenge. We went over this earlier and I received some very good answers to my questions and I really appreciate that. This is about the best interview I’ve gotten to do. And this may be a bit duplicated since I did deviate from scripted questions as I felt it would make the interview a little more interesting for both of us. My last question was really (and we skipped around) but it was “what do you feel is the part of your position that has the most impact on the organization?”Kolette: Again I think it’s just making sure that the data is needed is entered in an efficient manner so that they can take that info and do whatever they need to do with it to do their jobs.

Hazel: And I just have one more question left. Is there anything else that I didn’t ask you that you would want to tell me about? That can be anything.Kolette: That’s a really good question but I really don’t. No, I think you did well and I hope this project goes well for you.

2-1-1

Cami Anderson, 2-1-1 Center Manager

Hazel: How long have you worked for United Way and have you always worked in this position?Cami: So mine is a little tricky because I was a childcare connections employee. And so United Way absorbed child care connections. At that time, I was over at DHS doing CCAP (Colorado Childcare Assistance Program). And then I moved over to 211 in December of 2014 and then in February I got the position as the 211 manager. So it’s all brand new.

Hazel: How many years have you been working in this industry, helping people with childcare?Cami:I had been with Childcare Connections for, this May it’ll be two years. It’s a little tricky because Pikes Peak United Way absorbed Childcare Connections. But before that I was (inaudible) for seven years, so childcare in general, it’s been quite awhile.

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Hazel: What was it that led you to want to work for a non-profit? I guess this question sort of changes because United Way absorbed Childcare Connections. I didn’t know that the childcare program was absorbed from that so I might have asked a different question but I would still ask what really got you into this?Cami: So the whole Childcare Connections was a non-profit. I’ve pretty much worked for a non-profit since I moved down to Colorado Springs. There is just something about the non-profits that I really enjoy working for. They’re community based and I sort of like that.

Hazel: What are your official responsibilities? I think I may have your title noted down wrong because Cami: I have you as “211 Childcare Coordinator”. I’m 211 Center Manager. I oversee all of the 211 center and all the calls, as well as administrative stuff and pulling reports. I do a whole bunch. So I wear many hats.

Hazel: Do you have any “unofficial” responsibilities? Things that aren’t part of the job title but things that you just take care of?Cami: Unofficial? I mean, I do things every day that I guess are actually unofficial. Basically I want to help out as much as I can.

Hazel: What do you really like about what you do? What is your favorite aspect of this position?Cami: I love being able to help people. I love it. There are always some people that are not going to be pleasant but the ones that really appreciate it and appreciate what we do, I love it.

Hazel: That would make me add this question. Have you ever gotten feedback? Have you ever had someone call back later and say “You know, you guys really helped me. Thanks a lot”, like a success story, one that sticks out in your mind?Cami: There’s not one that sticks out in my mind. We have actually an intern that does follow up calls so sometimes she hears the majority of the success stories but it does happen.

Hazel: What has really been the biggest challenge since you got started there. What ‘s been the hardest thing about that position for you?Cami: For me personally, I think sometimes there’s things people will call for and we just don’t have the resources in our community. And to me, that’s the most painful part is telling someone that I don’t have a resource for them. Yeah, so I want to be able to help people as much as I can.

Hazel: You mentioned Childcare Connections but what do you know about the origins of the 2-1-1 program?Cami: So I’m sorry, what was that?

Hazel: What do you do you know about the origins of the 211 program?Cami: Like, can you be more specific?

Hazel: Like how the, I know 211 isn’t just Childcare, it’s kind of like they set it up so people could call and they can get help about just any issue. Like how that got started?Cami: How it all started? No, I would probably refer to Amy for info on how it all started.

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Hazel: Well I guess I kind of skipped ahead because I’d asked you this one earlier and it was: Do you get feedback from community members who have used 2-1-1 in a time of crisis? And there’s not really a particular story that sticks out in your mind?Cami: There is not. It’s in the works to gather all of those success stories and have them all in one place. I think it’s really important for people to realize what 211 is and what we do. A lot of people think we just answer calls and we do a lot more than that. So, it’s in the works to have a whole success story area for the whole focused work, where all of them can go.

Hazel: Do you have a plan for how you’re going to gather those?Cami: Well I guess we have an intern until the middle of May who did all the follow up calls. She is the one that will take over success stories. Once her time is gone, we’ll have another person who will do follow up calls as well. She.. or he will be able to gather those as well. [Editorial note: She said “she” and then corrected herself to include he]

Hazel: Ok ok, so you have an intern to basically do follow up calls and gather the info that way. That makes sense. What do you feel is the part of your position that has the most impact on the organization? I guess you do a lot of things but is there one particular that you feel has the most amount of impact?Cami: Honestly I think helping the community with the resources that we can. When people call in and we’re able to give them community resources. That’s impacting us as a whole and the community as a whole.

Hazel: If you were to think of a moment when you were at your best, like at your finest hour, the best moment that you’ve ever had, what would that moment be – what would that look like?Cami: The best of what was that?

Hazel: The best moment you’ve ever had since you’ve been doing this, whether that was since you’ve been with United Way, before United Way. The absolute best day you’ve ever had, doing what you do. What was that like? What happened that day?Cami: Everyone’s in a great mood, people are appreciative. You know, those don’t happen often but when somebody is really appreciative of what we do, how we help them, that really makes my day. If I could have one call like that every day, we’d be good. I’m pretty low maintenance, I’m sorry.

Hazel: You know, I don’t think that’s something be sorry about. That’s pretty good. Well I think we went through the questions pretty quickly. Was there anything else that you wanted to add? Was there anything else you want me to know about, in regards to the 211 childcare. I know, I’m a UCCS student and I’ve never been there but across the street they have a childcare center and I think that’s for college students that have kids and it’s really nice because it’s right next to the college but what would you say if you wanted to get the word out about this program. Either you wanted donors to understand the importance of it or getting people to understand that “Hey, there’s this fantastic resource available, give us a call, we can help you.” What is the one biggest message that you would want to send?Cami: That we’re not just childcare. We can do childcare referrals but we do basic human and health needs. So childcare is an aspect of it. We have the Peak Care Military Care network which is a military care network for veterans. They can call in. Have resources. There’s a senior line that people can call in and ask for senior services. We do a whole bunch of stuff. Childcare is just one aspect of it. We did a whole lot of everything.

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Hazel: Ok, well that’s really good. Since we ended a little bit sooner because I had Pam block out 15 minutes of everybody’s time and I got about 10, but I think that’s some really good info and I really appreciate that you had to take time out of your day to help us with this and give us this info. I really appreciate, I know how busy you guys are, I know Amy is is relatively new in her position, I know she was the senior VP of HR and now is the Chief Operations Officer and there’s been some staff movements and now Pam’s leaving and things have been kind of crazy there. Thank you very much. If I think of anything else, is there any chance I can call you? I don’t know if I’m going to come up with any questions but if I just have one or two is there a chance I can call you again?Cami: Yes. If you need any other questions answered, feel free to contact me.

CIS/HMIS

Anne Beer, VP of Income & Housing Stability

Hazel: Hi Anne, good morning how are you?Anne: I’m fine thank you, how are you?

Hazel: This is Hazel Lehtonen, I’m hoping that you were expecting my call.Anne: This is the HR project?

Hazel: Yes. Anne: And you’re one of the UCCS interns? Then yes, I am expecting your call.

Hazel: Ok, now I’m not officially an intern with United Way but we are doing a research project. Can you hear me okay because I have you on speakerphone?Anne: You are definitely breaking up. Let me turn the volume up a little. Okay, try that.

Hazel: Does that sound a little bit better?Anne: It’s a little bit better. You do break up a little.

Hazel: I’m just doing this because if I hand write notes, I don’t get quite all the info. I worked for the Sheriff’s Office and transcribed reports for years so I can almost type as quick as you can talk.

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It’s easier for me to be able to type and that way I can see at a glance what I’ve asked you. I’m sorry about the speakerphone, I’m trying to talk pretty loud so you can hear me. It took us awhile to kind of figure out where we wanted to take this project and it wasn’t until recently that I figured out that they’re doing sort of a staff spotlight in their quarterly newsletter so I’m trying to.. we weren’t completely clear on what Amy wanted us to do but we’re kind of figuring it out. I have some questions to ask of you and I think I can be pretty quick and get this done in roughly about 15 minutes, is that going to work for you?Anne: That will be just fine.

Hazel: And I’m not really good with scripted interviews, they just feel kind of cold and not personal and I’m a very personal kind of person.Anne: [Laughter] I’m okay either way.

Hazel: Ok I do have some kind of structured questions and the first one talks about you and that is: How long have you worked for United Way and have you always worked in this position?Anne: So I’ve been here for almost 12 years, July 1st will be my 12th anniversary with United Way and I am still responsible for some of the work that I was hired for but I have additional responsibilities as well. So I came on board to manage what’s called the HMIS or “Homeless Management Information System” as program manager and now I am the Vice President of Income and Housing Stability and manage the United Way initiative around income and housing but also manage the Continuum of Care as well as still manage the HMIS.

Hazel: Wow, so you wear a lot of different hats now. Well, 12 years ago, what was it that made you want to work for United Way?Anne: I actually was transitioning from the for-profit world, I had worked 26 years in high tech and reached a point where I felt as though I wanted to do something that would give back to the community and initially I identified three areas that kind of matched my passions in life: education, libraries and not for profit, and in the course of reaching out to people and networking and asking a lot of questions, and I had actually volunteered for UW starting back in the early 1980’s and have been a donor since I moved out here in 1978 so I found my way to United Way to do some more volunteer work. I thought that might be kind of fun and a good way of learning a bit more about what I might be interested in and honestly was just so impressed with United Way’s approach to allocating the funds that were raised and they were just beginning to measure results that people were achieving with the money that was given and I thought that was just great and an opportunity came open and I applied for it and that’s what brought me here. And I would say as I got here what I really figured out from the people here was that the organization was motivated by the heart but managed by the brain, so good business approach I really felt, so was good steward of the community’s money and they had started to get things done.

Hazel: That is a fantastic answer. Now this is going to seem a little mundane at this point but what are your official responsibilities? If you had to describe what you were doing, if you ended up in the spotlight in the quarterly newsletter than they’re doing, how would you describe your job responsibilities to coworkers?Anne: Oh my. [laughter] I manage the Continuum of Care which is the coordination of the efforts to prevent and end homelessness. The continuum of care is a federal terminology but it really is the collection of providers and stakeholders who are interested in addressing homelessness in our community so I manage that process and in addition to that and am responsible now as we roll out the United Way initiative around income, education and health so the income and housing stability initiative, so that’s my area of responsibility.

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Hazel: Do you have any “unofficial” responsibilities that are not particularly part of your area that you have to take care of but that you find yourself helping out with?Anne: Well the nice thing about a nonprofit is that you have an opportunity to do everything from cleaning toilets to developing a strategic plan. So I see part of my responsibility as a leader in the organization is to set an example for the values that we hold dear at United Way so I need to model the behavior that we are looking for in our organization and I’m a cheerleader for the organization and the work that we do.

Hazel: What is your favorite part of what you do?Anne: The people and information and the idea sharing, I think. The opportunity to really dive into some needy problems and figure out with this fabulous collection of people not just here but in the community, how we might pull together to address some of those knotty problems.

Hazel: What is the biggest challenge of your position? What’s the hardest thing about your position? You could take that in several different ways, there is a lot of flexibility in this, I want you to kind of drive the interview so if we deviate a little, that’s okay.Anne: So the hardest part of it is with respect to so I’ll do a couple of things. So with respect to homelessness, the hardest part I think is the lack of understanding about the complexity of the issue. We encounter resistance but so much of it is because people don’t fully understand how complicated an issue it is and how far back into people’s lives the root causes of it go. And so it just means that’s part of why it is such a difficult issue because in order for us to really make progress, we need to change the way people think about homelessness and that is very challenging.

Hazel: I’m trying to keep this under 15 minutes because I know you have a lot of things to do. If you were talking about homelessness, what is the point that you would want to make. I’m thinking there’s something behind your answer that I kind of wanted to capture, when you talk about changing the way that people think about homelessness. That’s really excellent and you’ve just piqued my personal interest in this issue. What do you want to say about it?Anne: At the root of homelessness, as a community, we need to address (I don’t know if equity is the right word) but we need to address access to education, economic opportunities and housing and then there’s kind of a whole realm which I suppose has to do with health and mental health. If you were to dive into people’s lives, you will find at the root of all of them, poverty (and that could be generational poverty), a lack of education, maybe family dysfunction, mental health, exposure to violence or drugs or substance use of whatever sort. I really think that everybody who experiences homeless, experiences some sort of trauma in those areas. If you consider lack of access to education or education that fits the person, we find people who aren’t meant for the college track that is kind of the basis for our education system or we have people who grew up in poverty and don’t know how to make the transition, how to get out of it. If you’ve experienced homelessness as a child, that instability is traumatizing for a child. Of if you’re exposed to violence whether it’s gangs so that kind of violent behavior or family violence; there’s domestic violence and that sort of thing. All of those factors, and I would challenge anyone to bring me a homeless person who has not experienced something like that. Getting to the root and creating educational, economic and housing and health opportunities for people is what we have to address.

Hazel: Now I will tell you, I talked to Kolette about an hour ago, the finance associate, she was really good too.

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You’ve both given me really good info to work off of regarding the passion, the vision and the purpose of United Way and I really appreciate it, that’s great, and I will honestly tell you, I used to work for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office before I left to return to college and get my Bachelor’s degree. I’m 38, I don’t sound like it, but I’m a much older student. Anne: Believe me, I’m practically ancient [laughter], I’ll be 65 this year.

Hazel: Well, you talked about 1978 and I’ve been living in Colorado Springs my whole life and I was two. I’ve got 38, almost 39 years here but I saw a lot of that in our people in the jail, a lot of people with mental health issues, substance abuse issues, a lot of people, inmates from the Gateways Program would come in and clean our offices and so we got to see kind of the process of how people were getting their lives together and Colette mentioned when I talked to her, the work she does down at the prison in Pueblo, which we kind of made a connection there and that was really excellent because I find that whether you’re inside of United Way or outside of United Way, we really define the term “United” and you find people that really care about making the community better and that’s just fantastic. It’s really been great getting to talk to you guys. This is about the most fun project I’ve ever done. Anne: Well and I would suggest that if you look at our prison, if you were to dive into the lives of the people in prison, you will find those things in their lives in some fashion or another.

Hazel: Well, I kind of want to skip this question a little bit but I need to ask you: What do you feel is the part of your position that has the most impact on the organization? Where in your position do you really feel that you are the most empowered?Anne: I have had great freedom to shape the work that we do. And so empowering my team and others to have that same sense of contribution, I think is just incredibly motivating.

Hazel: If you were to think of a moment when you were at your best, what would that moment be – can you describe it to me? That could be a pattern, that could be a particular event, whatever comes to your mind first.Anne: Any time I’m having an opportunity to engage in an exchange of ideas.

Hazel: I want to ask you, is there anything else that you would say, like if you were introducing yourself to new coworkers, and kind of explaining what you do and how you feel and what makes a difference, is there anything else you’d like to say? Anne: I think I’ve pretty well covered it. We often tell people that we’re the data geeks of the organization but I think that narrows the scope too much, so we certainly do a lot of data but the reason for it is to help guide our decision making. So yeah, I think I pretty much covered what I think we do.

Community Impact

Carrie McKee, Executive VP

Jennifer: Hi Carrie this is Jennifer calling, I’m with UCCSCarrie: Ok what do you know, what do you want to know.

Jennifer: Did Pam or Amy kind of give you any overview of what we’re doing?Carrie: I was out all last week, so not so much, but I roll with things pretty well.

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Jennifer: We’re HR majors and we’re doing a little work integrating the ASPIRE behavior standards you guys have going into training as well. How long have you worked for United Way and have you always worked in this position?Carrie: I have worked at United Way about 7.5 years and have had a variety of positions.

Jennifer: Can you give me a brief overview of your job description right now, what all are you involved in? Carrie: As the executive vice president I am overseeing our Cradle 2 Career efforts in the community, I also do a lot of work with our partner agencies and our fund allocation process.

Jennifer: You guys are in your second phase of your Cradle 2 Career, how is everything with that going? Carrie: It’s really exciting, we have great community engagement and we are getting close to our goals in finalizing identifying 3-5 goals.

Jennifer: Do you have any other unofficial responsibilities you are in charge of? Carrie: Oh of course in terms of supporting our staff to equipping them, and empowering them and mentoring them. Obviously just part of leadership and supporting the overall issues and initiatives and values of the organization. Embodying and…. All of the ASPIRE aspects. So is that kind of what you’re asking about or are you asking for anything else more specific?

Jennifer: No just anything else you might be involved in.---Carrie: I think any other significant pieces are supporting our community programs of education, income and health.

Jennifer: So out of the ASPIRE values, which do you think best represents you and your position at United way and why? Carrie: I can only pick one?

Jennifer: Well you can name a bunch of them if you’d like to, I’ll take them, no problem.Carrie: YES! I certainly feel like as I’m looking at them all, all of them are critical I would say that advocate is a significant one. It’s about empowering the voice of the community. Passion is a good one for me. Integrity. Really sustainable too. I mean that’s one that has, when I think about three things that are most critical for our organization I think its relevancy, its impact and its sustainability and so all of our ASPIRE attributes can point to those three things but if we don’t do those three things we’re not relevant we don’t have impact and we can’t figure out how to be sustainable, we will not have this organization in 10 years from now, it will have closed shop.

Jennifer: We’ve been looking at the behavior standards a lot. Do you think you’d choose a different one based solely on your work for Cradle 2 Career?Carrie: In terms of the aspire attributes, I’d say the best would be advocate.

Jennifer: Why would you say that?Carrie: As it says listen and empower the voice of the community to be the catalyst for change. That’s what Cradle 2 Career is all about.

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We don’t own Cradle 2 Career. Cradle 2 Career is a community-wide effort and it’s been birthed out of listening in more than 60 community conversations for what they hoped for in our community, and what they have thrown around some ideas and who do they trust………….it’s from the everyday people to the most influential people in the community listening and connecting to people and resources for impact and for change.

Jennifer: What is the biggest challenge of your position?Carrie: Choosing what to focus on, there are so many good things we could do, but the question is what could we have the greatest impact around and what most important in the present day.. Yeah, as far as choosing which programs to pick up and everything. It even gets down to the granule level, which meetings will I go to? How do I prioritize my work day to have the greatest impact in the community?

Jennifer: What is your favorite aspect of your position? Carrie: Undoubtedly connecting with other community members and staff people and allowing them to be made aware of what resources exist. Basically creating awareness around what incredible community assets we do have. It doesn’t stop there…..

Jennifer: It seems that Cradle 2 Career is going really great so best of luck with that…Carrie: It’s kind of about the leadership but more significant it’s a readiness it’s kind of like people, there’s a lot of people that are like ‘oh we tried this a few years ago’ but as we all know readiness whether it’s a relationship or it’s an idea or in acceptance of change it’s about readiness and our community is ready and poised for change so I’m very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in the inviting people to engage.

Jennifer: How do you choose the factors from which to focus? Carrie: I know it comes partially from the quality of life indicators? And we listened in on 60 community conversations and we themed all the community conversations… so let’s say there were 10 people in each of the community conversations, and some of them (we had 8) some of them we had 20, so we listened to more than 600 people (probably closer to a 1000) if you really look at the one on one meetings we had and we themed what we heard so we didn’t go ask where’s there need, but where’s there also alignment and momentum. Because people are compassionate about sidewalks and other people are passionate about feeding the hungry the question is what do we agree on and where can we go from there. Because people who are can agree on things are much more likely to work together so we themed what we heard and we figured out that really what-where we felt we had the most momentum alignment and need was around education and skills that are needed for created for careers as well as the flip side of that coin, creating careers and economic development so basically aligning the education and workforce development with the industries that are growing here in Colorado springs.

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Paula Munger, Director of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Background information:The idea of the Imagination Library national program came from singer Dolly Parton, who started her program to supply books to poor children in the rural areas of her home state of Tennessee. The local program was started by Paula Munger in 2012, before coming under the umbrella of the United Way in 2014. Says Munger: "It's hard to imagine, but there are children in our community that enter kindergarten having never held or owned a book - their literacy levels up to two years behind the other children in their class. By putting quality, age-appropriate books in their hands, we're not only increasing their literacy, but their success in school and in life.” (Navarro, AROUNDTOWN: Imagination Library brings books to area children's mailboxes, 2015) Other members of the Library Advisory Council include Judy Casey, Yevonne Conrad, Martha Frohling, Ellen Kratz, Sylvia Lovelace, Nancy Maday, Norene Masimer, Emily Murawski, Carol Macklin and Juli Williams.

Personal Interview on Thursday, April 16, 2015:

Hazel: So I’m assuming you kind of know what we’re doing or should I give you a brief synopsis?Paula: I’m think my time is very limited, so if you wouldn’t mind giving me a little brief synopsis, I would appreciate that.

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Hazel: Sure. Well Jennifer and I are Human Resource Management majors students at UCCS and you’ll have to pardon me because I have you on speakerphone so I hope you can hear me okay but that’s kind of so I can type notes. I’m home at my computer and I can type a lot quicker than I can hand write. And I want to make sure that I’m real concise and I know how busy you are and I want to be sure I get all the information. Jennifer and I are HR major students at UCCS and we are taking a class this semester where we have to do a research project that’s human resource related and we had to basically pick a local non-profit or a for-profit (but in our case we wanted to do a non-profit) and partner with that agency to do a project basically on human resource principles. It’s kind of a broad project so we had a lot of leeway on that so we approached Amy and we said “Well Amy we’d like to do some work for you,” and what Amy wanted to do (she gave us a bunch of Word documents and a set of Powerpoints) and what she wanted us to do was interview people associated with United Way, staff internally and then if we got time, people externally and she was looking for their ASPIRE values. So we were asked to bring out those values in whoever we interview, so that’s kind of what I was getting at. That was kind of the purpose of our interview. I did a little research on your program and I’m not sure if that’s you in the picture of the Gazette, there’s a Facebook post from March 18th.Paula: {Paula: That’s me. Yeah, we’d had our big fundraiser so we got some nice publicity}.

Well that was really neat and I read an article about that and I, I’m embarrassed that I’d never heard of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library so I did a little background research and found that it started in 1995 is what it looks like and in the year 2000 she made it available worldwide or to all communities essentially and I read that they sent out 60 million books, if those stats are correct. Paula: Yes, it’s incredible. In 18 months, a little over 800,000 books go out. It is now in the US, the UK and Australia and Canada. So it’s not totally international, but it’s international. Yeah, it’s an amazing program and Dolly truly believes in it and it was started by her just being very frustrated with low test scores in her community and she decided to visit homes to see what she might find out. What she found out was that these young children had no books in their homes. And so that is really how it all got started.

Hazel: I read that you started the program in 2012 out of your own home, is that correct?Paula: Yes, that’s correct.

Hazel: How did you find out about the program?Paula: One of my friends lives in Vermont and the public library had been involved with one of these programs and they didn’t want to do it anymore so they were looking for some people to pick it up so my friend and some of her friends did that in Vermont. Of course, it’s a small village in Vermont. They have about 1000 kids which they’re elated about because they’re really reaching a lot of that community. So after being on a road trip with her and talking about it, that’s how we got started.

Hazel: So just out of curiosity. Was there anything aside from your friend that got you interested? Do you have kids in school, were you exposed to neighbors’ kids that didn’t have books perhaps? Anything that jumped out at you and said “Wow, there’s a need.”? Paula: I owned a private preschool and early learning school in Northern Virgina for 20 years before moving to Colorado Springs. My degrees are in early childhood elementary education, reading specialist and administration. What my interest was is that I’ve always been an advocate for early literacy and the importance of early literacy. We had an incredible literacy program at my school and when I saw this program, I thought this would be definitely something that was right up my alley.

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Hazel: So how did you get started on your own and then you partnered with United Way in 2014? Paula: Once I got all the information about how you become an affiliate and I become a local champion, I have a number of friends who are retired educators and administrators and who have the same interests as I do as far as early literacy and the importance of it. So I gathered a few of them and together we created Early Books Early Reading. One of the requirements is that you need to team up with a nonprofit organization. They have to be the fiscal agent. At that time Paula Miller was the CEO of the Pikes Peak Library District and she gave me a call and said “I think this might be a really great partnership,” and so the Pikes Peak Library District became our fiscal agent to start with and then our next part of it was to raise the money before we even registered any children so I got several grants. One was from the Pikes Peak Community Foundation; it was a $5000.00 grant for startup costs. We applied to United Way under the “Success by Six” program to become a part of that for some funding. I always like to say they granted us money and we hadn’t even registered one child yet. Then, because of our Success by Six, our direction was towards D11 and D2 because that’s what they program was for then. I did a lot of research and found that zip code 80910 was actually one that had children in both school districts. So that was our original target area. We started with that and then we expanded as we could and then grant money came in and donations came in to several other zip codes. So that gets us up to December 2013. Jason Wood was the CEO and he called me and asked if we could speak and asked if I would be interested in coming under the Pikes Peak United Way umbrella. To me, that was so exciting because we had the prospect of being able to serve the children in all of Pikes Peak region and El Paso County. That gave the program longevity beyond me basically and so then the other part of that deal was how bout you come and direct the program for United Way. So that’s how a year ago in January I ended up being at United Way.

Hazel: Just so I have this information as well, how big is the local program now? For instance, how many school districts, how many kids are served?Paula: Well, it’s open to all 75 zip codes and we have over 8,000 children enrolled in the program. So we’re pretty well represented. There is no discrimination as far as economic availability. So whether your dad is making 100,000 or your mom is making 30,000, you’re still eligible for the program. The way I like to direct it is when we start a launch, when we’re really going, to really target particular children in an area. We try to target particular children in lower economic areas in the city. So that’s how we started in the original zip code and a lot of the other ones have been added that way. So that’s where we are right now.

Hazel: How has this program being a part of United Way helped you achieve your vision? What would you say your vision is for this program? You talked about longevity. What would you like that long-term longevity to be, essentially your legacy of this program?Paula: I think if there were no questions about money or anything else, then there are 47,000 eligible children under the age of 5. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library projections show that in five years, you should reach 60% of that, which puts us around 26,000 or something like that. And that is really one of my visions to be able to reach as many or up to that number that we can in a five year period.

Hazel: And then that number, is that 47,000 just for the Pikes Peak Region, am I understanding that correctly? Paula: 47,000 for El Paso County and Teller County as well.

Hazel: What do you feel is the part of your position that has the most impact on the organization? What part of what you do has the biggest impact?

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Paula: Well, I think one of the biggest impacts for United Way and for United Way supporters is that it’s a program that people really understand and they can see how it’s going to have an influence in the community in the future. And that it is not thousands of dollars. Someone can support one child to receive 12 books for $30.00. In the fall, I was on the road with a lot of the RV people and we presented a lot about United Way but then in particular presented about the Imagination Library. There is a significant number of donors who are especially interested in education and concerned about education in general so they really could get their arms around this program and be able to support it.

Hazel: I want to re-word this question a bit. My original question was “If you were to think of a moment when you were at your best, what would that moment be – can you describe it to me?” Maybe I want to say “What did your finest hour look like? What was your biggest success, the thing that really you’re most proud of that you’ve done in starting this program?Paula: This was the best and maybe the worst so let me explain that to you. I would say the biggest victory was when the community became aware of the program. There was a newspaper article that went out last March 1st and it explained the program and it basically went viral from that point on and we just started registering. We had online registration and we were getting 1000 to 15000 registered kids each month. Oh my gosh we were so excited , it was really so fast and this was I mean we were flying high until the reality of it came that whoops, our funding hadn’t exploded quite as the registration passed and since this is a free program to all children, we chose to just say after a few months of that happening, I think in September, that we basically said that the online registration was closed so it was no longer open for registration that way. So that we, in particular I, had control over the registration. One of the best parts of that too that came out of that decision is a partnership with CPCD (which is Head Start) and we now have an arrangement and agreement that every child head that registers for Head Start also registers for this program. We feel it’s really a strong way of targeting the children that we want to target in the community.

Hazel: That kind of led me towards another question. If you wanted to get the word out to anyone, like UCCS is an educational institution, all the time they have guest speakers that come in and talk to the students there and these are college students but if you had one message for UCCS students, what would that be?Paula: Well I think the biggest thing that I would say is that it has been proven that investment in early literacy just repays itself ten times over later in life so any involvement that students or educators could do to be involved in early literacy programs (not just mine),but other programs, the importance of it for our community would just be so strong.

Hazel: Is there anything else you wanted to add that I haven’t asked you, anything that you wanted to point out?Paula: I don’t think so. Did you know that a child can be registered at birth through age five and if a child is registered at birth, they receive 60 free age-appropriate books throughout that program. Think that’s significant to know.

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Education

Deana Hunt, VP of Education Hazel: This is Hazel, I’m one of the UCCS students calling that’s doing the research project. If I read Pam’s email correctly, she said you’d have about 15 minutes to talk to me today?Deana: Yes.

Hazel: I’m not sure how much you know about our project. Did you have any questions about it or did Pam give you an introduction?Deana: I believe she said you guys were working on new employee orientation, is that right?

Hazel: Yes, it’s essentially that, it’s a little hard to explain. What we’re putting together, there are essentially two components to it: the research paper side, which is submitted to the university because it’s a class and then there’s the side that we present to United Way, kind of a staff orientation, from our understanding. So I just have some questions for you, they are somewhat scripted but I don’t particular feel very comfortable with scripted interviews and I hope you don’t mind that I have you on speakerphone, because I can type almost as quick as a person can talk so it’s easier for me to be hands-free so I don’t miss something. I kind of have a list of questions and I’m not sure if it was provided to you ahead of time but one of my first ones is about you: How long have you worked for United Way and have you always worked in this position?Deana: So I have been with United Way for.. it’ll be a year in the June/July timeframe (so almost a year) and I joined United Way as the VP of Education, which is the role that I’m still in. I joined United Way when I was the executive director of a small nonprofit that actually transitioned in under Pikes Peak United Way and so when I approached the organization regarding the transition, they said “Well, we want you to come with it,” so that was how I got here.

Hazel: Can I ask you what that non-profit was?Deana: It was Childcare Connections so we did referrals for parents who were looking for childcare as well as a lot of training around what quality childhood care was so those services were transitioning, the referral piece, which fit within 211, and then the other pieces have kind of fallen in under education.

Hazel: I believe I talked to one of your associates this morning, I believe it was Cami Anderson, who also came in under Childcare Connections. Deana: Yes.

Hazel: Ok, I talked to her about 9 o’clock this morning, I’ve got these interviews spaced out a little bit. It kind of defeats my next question, because the next one is: “What was it that led you to want to work for a non-profit?” So I guess I need to expand that a little bit since you were already in a nonprofit when Childcare Connections got absorbed by United Way, so I guess I need to go back a little further and ask you want really piqued your interest in Childcare Connections..?Deana: I was with Childcare Connections for 8 years and so my degree is in an emphasis in community service so I was very intrigued with Childcare Connections and the community service aspect of that within the community.

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My degree is actually in human development, so my background is early childhood. So when I found out the work they were doing, it was just a natural fit with that community service emphasis.

Hazel: So when your childcare position was absorbed within United Way, how did they draft your official responsibilities? What are they now at United Way? I’m assuming they probably expanded quite a bit.Deana: Yes and no. So some things I was able to shift off my plate, which was very helpful. Thankfully Amy’s an HR person so I don’t have to deal with HR issues anymore, don’t have to deal with some of the payroll and finance issues. So I think that my role has continued to evolve a little bit since I’ve been here so I was presented with a job description when they offered me the position and I think that’s definitely evolved since they found out what some of my skills are, as well as the organization has evolved a little bit in the past year. I wouldn’t say that my job description that I was presented with when I was offered the job would be the same one.

Hazel: I understand that. I actually experienced that quite a bit myself at my last job. Do you have any “unofficial” responsibilities, like any new things that aren’t covered under your original job responsibilities? What are some of these new things that have been put onto your plate?Deana: I’m helping with the Cradle to Career along with Justin and with Carrie McKee, that was something that wasn’t where it’s at now when they offered me the position. But they couldn’t put that on the job description at that point because they didn’t know what it was going to look like as well as a couple of other initiatives that have come to United Way since I’ve been here, a new grant funding source in order to support a charter school here in town that I oversee. So through those things, they just weren’t here when they offered the job to me.

Hazel: I actually want to come back to Cradle 2 Career a little bit because we’ve done a little bit of research on the outside, but from inside United Way, I’m kind of lacking information and I wanted to get some other information from you. What is your favorite aspect of what you do today? What do you really like the most?Deana: So I like the new challenges and I like learning new things and I like really pulling people together and building upon the relations.

Hazel: What is the biggest challenge of your position?Deana: It would be some of the ambiguity around some of the work. Just because it’s being defined as we do it. It’s hard to be able to sometimes tell people this is where we’re going end up when we haven’t defined how we’re getting there.

Hazel: What do you feel is the part of your position that has the most impact on the organization?Deana: There are couple of different initiatives that are new within the organization that I’m working on. I think that the Cradle to Career work is critical. From my position, making sure that moves forward as we start to define some goals. That would really help to {sic} whether I will continue working on that. We’re also just starting a local branch of what they call executives partnering to invest in children so that will also be a big part of my role moving forward is just ensuring that we’re informing the business community about what’s important for young children, also pulling in all the Success by Six stuff into that. So I guess I would expect that the majority of my job is that community impact part of it.

Hazel: I can look a lot of this up, but can I just get you to describe in your voice, more about the Cradle to Career work and the Success by Six program.

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From the course of my research, I think that the Success by Six is somewhat tied to Paula Munger and I talked to her yesterday a bit about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and the idea of getting books out to kids and I had a really good conversation. I noted that she also started out separately and then was absorbed into United Way so I’m seeing a real pattern here, which is great. I’m seeing people that are really passionate about what they do and then they come under the umbrella of United Way and that seems to led to a really committed and really robust staff that really loves what they do. If we have enough time, if you could describe those to me it would be nice to get some information directly from the source. Deana: The Cradle to Career work started before I joined United Way in a different phase. When Jason become the CEO and started looking at how United Way could create impact within the community, they really started a process of partnering with Harwood Institute to develop some community conversations. Their goal was to turn out word and start seeing what the community needed. At that point in time, with the community conversations, they were hearing several different themes within the community. They wanted people that wanted to kind of break down silos. There were too many silos within our community. There were too many people doing their own thing and not working together toward a common goal. From that we pulled together a task force last fall that was comprised of leaders from a variety of sectors within the city; so we had nonprofit leaders, government leaders, business leaders were probably our biggest group of people there. We had 50 + people come together in these task forces and just talk about what are the needs of our community. We brought the idea from the community conversations forward that this is what we’re hearing, is this what you’re hearing. So from that over a three month period we brought them together regularly to just meet and talk about those things. We narrowed it down to two focus areas that they really felt were critical for the community to rally around. Those were that education and skills needed for careers. And that the second focus area is sitting down with some working committees and trying creating job opportunities and economic development in the community. So we’re now in phase two of the work which is sitting down with some working committees and from those two focus areas, trying to create 3-5 overarching goals that the community can really rally around. We’ll actually be done with that process in mid-May so we’ll be able to announce those goals at the June 4th community celebration. And then we’ll move into phase three, which is really defining measured outcome, making sure right people are at the table in order to develop the strategies to reach our goals.

Hazel: I did note that I don’t have the current information because a lot of board members have changed. I think the chair changed to Mr. Fortune from USAA (I’m going off my memory here). So I understand that Jerry Forte from Colorado Springs Utilities was involved and I noted that Jeff Greene was also involved in that. I know Jeff Greene, because I used to work for the county. I came from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. Can you tell me about anyone else outside United Way that’s involved in this Cradle to Career initiative?Deana: We actually have on our roster of Cradle to Career, people who are regularly getting updates. There are over 150 people from the community who are engaged in some way with the work that we’re doing. Jerry Forte is on the United Way board, but he also is a co-chair of one of the committees for creating job opportunities and economic development committee, along with Tom Nepple from a manufacturing organization and then we have the other working committee is chaired by Lance Bolton from PPCC and Jen Wailand from Cascade Investment Group. There is a wide variety of people participating. We have school districts who are there, business leaders are there and the Pikes Peak Workforce Center so just a really wide variety of people and it’s been really exciting to hear all of their input and feedback throughout the process.

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Hazel: One of the things I found out too (and I’m getting to the end of the questions). One of the things I did note that the movement actually went much further back than 1922. It was actually going on up in 1887 in Denver and it’s very interesting to note that Frances Wisebart Jacobs (she was one of the original founders of the Charity Organization Society of Denver), she was actually a schoolteacher so I thought that was really neat that you’ve taken on the issues of education and job opportunities because that was over 100 years ago, that was her dream back then and you’re still continuing it, which I thought was really neat. We were supposed to get to interview 30 people on the staff and with Pam leaving and all the changes, I didn’t get to interview very many. I really only got about 7. And I’m really grateful that you’re one of them because when I saw that you were the VP of education I was very happy. So I think I’ve gotten a lot of the information; the information about Cradle to Career is really great. The Success by Six program, is that really covered under Paula Munger; is there something I’m missing?Deana: Success by Six is actually a portion of grant funding that United Way does, so we have the community fund which funds a lot of safety net services. Several years ago, a little bit of that money was set aside for the Success by Six initiative. Pikes Peak United Way is actually funding several organizations who are working within that birth to age 6 group. They are specifically working on projects that are either around home visiting, early literacy and parent engagement. In-house, the Imagination Library actually used to be a Success by Six affiliate, and so it’s really a funding stream for those organizations but then we’re looking at how we ensure that those organizations can have a community impact.

Hazel: If you were to think of a moment when you were at your best, what would that moment be – can you describe it to me?Deana: I think some of my biggest victories are really working with others in the community who are also passionate about early childhood education, and so when we’re able to share that information and have other people rally around it and get excited, I think that’s probably one of my biggest victories here.

Hazel: Are there any particular people from any particular organizations that come to mind when you think about that, like who has really been a rising star?Deana: Not necessarily. I had a lot of good relationships within the community that I’m working with prior to coming here as well. Now that I’m in a different role, it’s been interesting to see those relationships shift a little bit. I think that building new relationships as well as redefining the old ones in a little bit different way in order to move the message forward a little bit better.

Jeff Greene – El Paso County AdministratorThe authors were able to obtain a brief 30 minute interview with Jeff Greene. The interview was not recorded as the others were and will simply be described. Hazel met with Jeff Greene on Tuesday, April 28th. Jeff Greene is the El Paso County Administrator and is a new member of the Board of Directors for United Way. Mr. Greene just joined the board this year. Mr. Greene noted a paradigm shift in United Way away from traditional history methods and geared more towards outcomes. He noted a recent conversation with local business leaders in terms of finding an answer to how United Way intends to identify the outcomes of its initiatives.

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He mentioned in terms of measuring the effectiveness of community impact “How do we move the needle?” (Greene, 2015) He also mentioned recent conversations with the head of the Department of Human Services to determine who is leading which efforts. Mr. Greene believes that United Way is one of the key leaders that can impact change. He also mentioned discussions recently had regarding how to leverage resources to impact change and that United Way is making a concerted effort to find answers to these very valuable questions. When I mentioned the Continuum of Care initiative, Mr. Greene said that there was a very successful program in Maricopa County where they were able to put together a homeless center. He said that United Way is also dealing with issues such as how to bring back more affordable housing to the community. Repeatedly, Mr. Greene mentioned “QLI’s” or “Quality of Life Indicators” that United Way is gathering to attempt to measure the impact of their initiatives. He mentioned that El Paso County helps to fund the gathering of this data. When I asked him how he manages his activities while being on so many boards, Mr. Greene said that by sitting on multiple boards and having so many community connections, this has a sort of “multiplier” effect and gives him more power and influence in the community to effect change.

Perhaps the main point that we found in this interview is the fact that even with his busy schedule, Mr. Greene made time to talk to us. In fact, he delayed a meeting he had with one of the county commissioners just to attempt to help us with our project. During my interview with Mr. Greene, I was cordially invited into his office and we found that Mr. Greene exemplifies the United Way value of respect.

United Way ValuesThe following are representative of the United Way ASPIRE values that we were able to glean from news articles.

Advocate“It’s not about our brand or it’s not about how much money we can raise, but how we can be there to be supportive of the community, and it’s not about who owns anything” – Jason Woods, CEO. (Rodgers, United Way Leader Sees Partnerships as Key, 2013) Wood’s statement here is an excellent example of United Way’s simple and selfless value of supporting and advocating for the needs of the community.

“Cause things to happen,” was the sentiment of Richard Moore, United Way volunteer chairman in 1977. (Green, "Cause Things to Happen", Moore Tells UW Volunteers, 1976) Mr. Moore’s statement is a great example of the United Way’s value of being an advocate for positive community impact.

Sustainable“As the little group starts then a little momentum starts, which creates bigger momentum.” – Kent Fortune (Mendoza, A Portrait of United Action, 2014) Mr. Fortune’s idea that small initial efforts later lead to larger and lasting impacts supports United Way’s value of sustainable change.

“We’re pleased because we think that what we do goes beyond dollars and cents, to how many people we helped. It’s about trying to create change that’s sustainable in people’s lives.” – JD Dallager (Cotter B., Local United Way Chapter Sticks to Positives, 2010) Mr. Dallager’s statement is a verbatim reflection of United Way’s goal to create lasting impact in people’s lives, impact that sustains itself.

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“Specialists help callers figure out short-term solutions to their problems, as well as a long-term plan to become self-sufficient,” says 211 Center Manager Jessica Johnson-Simmons. (Kelley, More in Need are Dialing up United Way's 211 Hotline, 2009) Ms. Johnson-Simmons’ description of 211 specialists looking for both short-term and long-term solutions for callers in need is an excellent example of United Way’s value of sustainability. Rather than look for short-term solutions just to be able to end the call, these people look for long-term solutions as well.

PassionFormer CEO JD Dallagher was unable to attend the 2012 campaign launch luncheon because he was busy riding his bicycle atop Independence Pass as part of the Ride the Rockies, raising money for the 2-1-1 program. (Navarro, Pikes Peak United Way Tops $5M Mark for an 8th Year, 2012) The authors believe this is a living example of this man’s passion for United Way’s missions. Rather than attend a luncheon to collect and redistribute praise, he simply preferred to go out and get things done.

“The result is the reward,” said United Way volunteer Mary Wharton. (Green, United Way Volunteer Chairman Brings Tradition to her Efforts, 1976) This is an excellent example of the passion of a volunteer who puts the best of herself into her work for no other reward than for the positive impact that she knows her work can have on others.

“We can feel it, we can touch it, we know it’s there. Now let’s go out and get it done,” said Mel Kensinger, General Campaign Manager of United Way in 1975. (Hall, 1975)The passion in Mr. Kensinger’s statement, though spoken nearly 40 years ago, still resonates even today.

IntegrityWhile interviewing for the position of CEO, former CEO JD Dallager raised the issue of the scandal at the USAFA, his former employer. The Air Force had stripped him of one star, citing his failure to handle the problem. He brought the issue up in the interview himself, saying “I felt they needed to very carefully deliberate on that.” (Leider, 2007) This gentleman retired amid a scandal which made national news headlines. He subsequently sought the CEO position at United Way and rather than hide from an instance where things did not work out as he may have planned, he actively raised the issue and was open to being questioned about it. This took courage, as well as the integrity to be open and honest.

Respect“I would like to take credit, but those are the community’s words.” – Jason Wood, CEO, referring to the positive feedback the United Way received for bringing up the issue of developing an action plan. (Mendoza, Blazing a Path of Shared City Goals, 2014) This statement speaks to Mr. Woods’ respect for members of the community for truly finding their voice. Rather than having United Way take credit for the action plan, he takes the opportunity to sing the praises of the community, proving that he feels respect for their efforts and participation.

“I just thought they didn’t want to work,” said Sgt. Samuel Drennan, who was helping Anne Beer survey the homeless. After spending a few hours talking to people in the Marian House soup kitchen, he gained new insight, saying “There’s a lot of things that go into it. And a lot of people are trying to get work and get out of it.” (Cotter B. , Fort Carson Helps Reach Out to the Homeless, 2012) We felt that this exemplified the United Way value of respect. Here was a young man who previously had a sort of prejudice against the homeless. After working with Anne Beer of United Way, he was able to overcome that prejudice and see that many people are homeless not because of any lack of character, but rather have been victims of circumstance.

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“Volunteers help our programs move forward. We couldn’t do the things we do without them.” – Kim Sommer, Director of Operations for Special Kids/Special Families (Kelley, United Way Aims to Sign Up 4,000 Volunteers, 2009) We felt that this also exemplified the United Way value of respect. Although Ms. Sommer was not directly a United Way employee, her interaction and cooperation with United Way has led to a great deal of respect for the value of volunteer work.

ExcellenceUnited Way received four stars, the top award given to nonprofit organizations from Charity Navigator, an organization that helps donors make informed decisions about charity donations. (Cotter B. , 2011) Rather than sing its own praises, United Way has simply earned the respect of one of the major associations that helps provide information to donors. Receiving this sort of rating is a testament to United Way’s accountability and transparency, which will lead to further excellence and effectiveness in reaching its goals with the help of informed donors.

“Exceeding the projected goal by $150,000, at a time when everyone has been touched by the economic downtown, speaks volumes about our community’s incredible willingness to help others in need when the chips are down.” – JD Dallagher, former United Way CEO. (Navarro, United Way's TopNotch Year, 2011) This speaks both to the excellence of United Way in achieving great results in the face of adversity but also speaks to the excellence of the community in continuing to be generous in times when community members themselves may come up short in resources. This shared excellence is a perfect example of the real partnership between United Way and the community itself.

Recommendations for United Way Orientation ProgramSmall as it may be, we recommend aligning the Pikes Peak United Way history with the United Way of Denver, which more accurately reflects the real origins of United Way. As mentioned before, in a review of both the Pikes Peak United Way website (www.ppunitedway.org) , as well as the organization’s Facebook page, noticeable absent were the personal narratives of people whose lives were impacted by United Way. The authors do not feel that including these in any way takes away from United Way’s vision of collective impact. We simply believe that this evokes more emotion in the reader and thus is more likely to be memorable information. Although this is may not necessarily be incorporated into the onboarding program itself, we felt that this is something United Way may want to consider.

In looking at Pikes Peak United Way’s HR functions, there are a few recommendations we’d like to make. Through the entirety of this process, while running into problem after problem, there were a few items we would have liked to have had an opportunity to fix. In the scope of things, we came into this project with “fresh eyes” and were able to see a perspective that those in the company may not be able to see. First, the idea of getting a new employee through HR in a matter of mere moments has an effect on a company’s overall performance. In Accenture’s The High Performance Workforce Study, it was found that “companies that master the human capital capabilities, they believe are absolutely critical to their

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success show a significantly higher return to shareholders over time” (How HR and Training Practices Can Boost Worker Performance, 2005). While United Way is a nonprofit with no corporate shareholders breathing down their necks for monetary returns, their shareholders could be considered to be their local community. Increasing the performance of their employees through training is a critical component in ensuring the success of each of their individual programs. With many different departments and programs throughout the company itself, a well-rounded working knowledge on each of these will be beneficial to both the company and new employee alike. We would like to take the current fast-paced practice, composed entirely of only signing legal forms and replace that with a standard orientation process that is effective and timely. With free time being a commodity in the company, our orientation would need to include a tour of the building, a new orientation guide, and a PowerPoint to familiarize new employees with the programs the company supports.

This company is centered on its programs, initiatives, and the programs they support. For this reason, our first recommendation for the company would be to write more in-depth program descriptions with clearer details. In the orientation guide and various other paperwork we were given, the programs have very brief descriptions. We found that online there are somewhat better descriptions but still the information behind them is limited. We would like to see a program guide listing:

The history behind the program What the program consists of Who are the main people involved (employees, non-employees and other agencies), What are- if any- the main departments involved How exactly the program works.

We see this program guide as giving each employee a strong foundation on which to begin their United Way career. It would give them the underlying knowledge for which the company is built and upon which it operates. In various United Way literature that we were given access to and through the few interviews we were able to conduct, there is a lot of general information in regards to United Way’s initiatives. However, from an outsider or newcomer point of view, the exact relationship between United Way programs and United Way initiatives is not entirely clear.

Working hand in hand with the program guide is something we were originally tasked to work on, the “yearbook”. We originally felt this could be a huge portion of our assignment, and as things fell through on this, we were disappointed. The “yearbook” would not necessarily be a source of memories for the staff, but as a way for new employees to become familiar with faces, and personnel functions within the office. We would like to have given each department and position a description of their area of responsibility and how each position relates to others. A basic “job description” and photo would give employees the opportunity to learn which people or departments they could go to for information and/or assistance, given certain assignments.

Furthermore, because of United Way’s busy schedule, we find that members often lose track of day-to-day activities. Because this agency holds collective impact so dear, we feel that collective knowledge is appropriate as well. We recommend that the company develop a collaborative intranet where members can make entries to celebrate victories and to introduce themselves to other staff throughout the organization. Although this involves some work on their parts, we feel that this will meet Amy’s criteria of the information being readily updatable. Furthermore, we would encourage this system to be set up in a way that staff can praise others. We found that although staff members are very passionate, they are also very humble and are less likely to speak of their own specific accomplishments. This could be

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set up in a way that if staff feel uncomfortable sharing their own personal victories, this would give them a venue by which they could extol the virtues and accomplishments of their colleagues.

Six Elements of a Successful Onboarding ProgramAs part of our research, we examined elements of typically successful onboarding programs. According to recent statistics, only 32 percent of organizations have formal onboarding programs (Campbell, 2015). Furthermore, many of those programs do not last beyond one month. Many of those programs focus on forms and compliance, rather than introducing new staff to the culture and values of the organization. The authors believe that United Way wants to be in the latter group, that of the organization that focuses more on values than on procedures. The authors do not have firsthand knowledge of the exact nature of the onboarding being conducted at United Way so we make the disclaimer that United Way may already be following some of these practices.

In the course of our research into elements of a successful onboarding program, the authors noted that the principles we identified spell out the easy to remember acronym: “P.I.L.L.A.R.” It is our hope that our professor may see fit to use these principles as teaching material in future human resource management classes at UCCS.

Pre-Arrival:Whether a new employee is a manager or line-level staff, a good onboarding program includes having the employee’s actual workspace prepared. This includes anything and everything from their desk, computer, network login, email and phone. This also includes having both this person’s subordinates and supervisors aware of a firm start date.

Information:Although there is a delicate balance between adequate information and “information overload”, all new staff members need to have a basic understanding of key relationships both inside the outside the organization. Marjorie Derven, a prominent researcher in the field of organizational training and research, says to “provide mapping tools to help the new manager define the ‘inner circle’ of key internal relationships most critical to getting work done, as well as a secondary ring of relationships that may be less integral to the job but still need to be established the right way.” (Derven, 2008) Many workplaces often provide a telephone list of staff but the authors of this paper agree with Derven that relationships should actually be mapped out as well. An organizational chart may be well suited for this purpose. This is one area in which we feel United Way could make improvements. If they do not already have an organizational chart, we strongly suggest they take the time to develop one.

Link:The employee’s job should be clearly linked to the organization’s strategic goals. As Derven says, “New managers must clearly understand the mission and business of the organization and how their work contributes to its success. While clearly some positions have a direct line of sight to the business (such as a marketing manager in a consumer products company), even roles that have a less direct impact (a security manager in a law firm for instance), must have clear links.” (Derven, 2008) The authors believe

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that this principle applies not just to managers but to line-level staff as well. Furthermore, the demographic of the workforce is changing as more “baby boomers” retire and more “millennials” join the workforce. Younger generations expect to gain more personal meaning from the work that they do. Often, they will search for companies aligned with their own sense of purpose. Seasoned consultant Jan Ferri-Reed, CEO of the Key Group, says “For many millennials an organization’s philanthropic orientation is either the deal maker or deal breaker when they seek employment.” (Ferri-Reed, 2013)

Listening:New employees are valuable sources of information in terms of first impressions in a company. This goes far beyond the first impressions that new employees generate about themselves. They are a valuable source of information in regards to the first impression the company is making upon new employees. A long time specialist in human resources and organizational development, Laurie Friedman reminds us that “New hires can offer you real-time feedback on what is working or not working.” (Friedman, 2006) The authors believe that this is an element very frequently overlooked. If companies wait until the exit interview before getting feedback from employees, they are missing out on a valuable opportunity.

Allow Interaction:The days of PowerPoint presentations and one-way lectures are gone. Today’s workforce is increasingly demanding of interaction. Having grown up surrounded by the information superhighway of the internet and the collaborative and interactive tools this technology provides, new workers expect a great deal of information and interaction, more so that previous generations. As Ferri-Reed further elaborates, “They like to share information and expect co-workers to openly share information with them.” (Ferri-Reed, 2013) This is another way that we felt a well-developed intranet site could create an impact. On very positive aspect of the intranet developed at the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office was that it had a section where new employees were welcomed. Each incoming employee had a chance to share something about themselves to help their coworkers get to know them.

Ride-Along:New employees at the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office go through four intensive days of onboarding. Civilian employees spend a considerable amount of time with staff from the Intake and Release section at the Criminal Justice Facility, with Internal Affairs, and ride along with deputies serving civil court papers and overseeing evictions. They also spend time riding along with deputies who are on patrol. This very effective approach helps employees understand the nature of the work and to better understand where their position fits in the organization. This idea is very valuable, not just for police or public service agencies.

Although this may be nearly impossible in circumstances where the employee is the only person performing that particular duty, it may still help them to spend time in other departments so that they are aware of how their job duties impact other staff and other departments. Ferri-Reed advocates for this approach as well, saying “Consider placing your new employees in brief, temporary assignments with other departments.” (Ferri-Reed, 2013) If feasible, consider letting employees “shadow” another employee while they

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are learning the tasks and duties of a particular position. This is highly effective in departments with more than one of the same position.

How Pikes Peak United Way Compares with other United Way BranchesThe Pikes Peak United Way is not alone in its pursuit of “community conversations” in order to find out the needs of the community. The authors noted that a Mile High United Way post from Facebook on April 9th mentions a “community conversation around the issues that impact us all as Coloradans.” (Mile High United Way, 2015) As Amy Dinofrio had repeatedly mentioned wanting an onboarding program that represented “the face of United Way”, although the authors initially intended to turn to staff members to generate this, upon further review of the Mile High United Way Facebook page, we noted that United Way of Denver has a photographer take photographs of the homeless in Denver to put a face to their plight. We found this to be an extremely effective way of giving the lives impacted by United Way a “face” of their own. As mentioned before, this is part of the personal narratives that we found so effective with the Denver branch of United Way. For example, with United Way’s Continuum of Care initiative to address the needs of the homeless population here in the Pikes Peak region, the Pikes Peak United Way could launch a similar campaign to personalize the struggle. The authors do not feel that this would take away from United Way’s goal of having a collective impact.

Reference Guide/ United Way Program Descriptions

Cradle to Career InitiativeAt first, we thought that “Cradle 2 Career” was specifically a United Way program. However, upon further research we came to understand that this is not a program, rather something resembling a collective mission.

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Emily's Story: A Mile High United Way personal narrative

United Way is leading the charge in attempting to bring a wide variety of people together from the community to do two specific things:

Help people develop the education and skills needed for successful careers Help develop the local economy so that there are careers for this empowered workforce

What United Way strives to do with this initiative is to truly bring different organizations together to unite around these common goals. The working committees and focus group activities, as well as community conversations, have been all about the important step of defining and agreeing upon these goals. The United Way started out not as an end-all charity organization; rather, it started as an entity to gather and redistribute resources to local charities according to their needs. United Way is fulfilling this same original mission with this and with its Continuum of Care initiative. The Cradle 2 Career initiative is relatively new, its origins arising out of a way to meet community needs in a non-political way. “United Way sees its role as changing from only funding programs to actively leading local initiatives like employment and affordable housing,” said board member Stephanie Finley (Mendoza, Seeking to Move Forward, 2014) As United Way CEO Jason Wood puts it, “if you think about it, from the moment you’re born until you hit your career, those are critical years in all of our lives.” (Rodgers, "Cradle to Career" a United Focus, 2014) Potential goals examined in the initiative include focusing on youth and exiting military, as well as removing the negative stigma around trade and technical jobs. Generating leads to internships, scholarships and entrepreneurial opportunities are also ideas that the working committees are looking into.

Continuum of Care Initiative:Like Cradle To Career, the Continuum of Care initiative is a collaborative approach by multiple agencies to address the needs of homeless individuals in the community. 13 other agencies are involved, including Alano House, AspenPointe, Colorado Springs Housing Authority, Greccio Housing Unlimited, Interfaith Hospitality Network of Colorado Springs, Partners in Housing Inc., Pikes Peak Community Action Agency, Rocky Mountain Human Services, Salvation Army of El Paso County, Springs Rescue Mission, Tri-Lakes Cares, Urban Peak Colorado Springs, and the Department of Veterans Affairs – El Paso County.

Decade of Difference Initiative:This United Way initiative focuses on the time “right around the financial stability of those between the ages of 16 to 26,” said United Way CEO Jason Woods (Rodgers, United Way Leader Sees Partnerships as Key, 2013). Woods further described this initiative as being “the opportunity to go earn that credential that can give them that life-sustaining wage.” (Rodgers, United Way Leader Sees Partnerships as Key, 2013) Based on the purpose of this initiative, the authors felt that there is some overlap between this and the Cradle To Career initiative.

Education ProgramsPikes Peak United Way started the “Success by Six” program in 2011. A goal of the program was to fill in gaps due to not having enough space in the Community Partnership for Child Development’s (CPCD) Head Start program for needy children. Initially, families in District 11 and District 2 were targeted.

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Although initially United Way had to shift funds away from other vital programs, manager Amber Coté explained the reasoning behind this as: “We have to think about the long-term investment for the community.” (Iodice, 2011)

In addition to “Success by Six”, the local Dolly Parton Imagination Library program started by Paula Munger in 2012 has been brought under the umbrella of the Pikes Peak United Way and is now one of their programs as well. This program registers children to receive 12 free books each year from birth to age 5, for a total of 60 books per child. Says Munger: “By putting quality, age-appropriate books in their hands, we’re not only increasing their literacy, but their success in school and in life.” (Navarro, Book Program Fuels Children's Love of Reading, 2015)

Child Care Connections is another program that has also been absorbed by the Pikes Peak United Way. Deana Hunt, United Way’s VP of Education and Cami Anderson, the 2-1-1 center manager both came aboard United Way when this program was absorbed.

Income ProgramsThe Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) is a program to help families with under $53,000 in annual income to file their taxes electronically. Part of the goal of this program was to help low-income families get their tax refunds sooner and avoid the high-interest tax refund loan programs many people turn to in times of need. Such high-interest programs may provide emergency assistance but do so at an extremely high cost.

Health Programs Pikes Peak United Way helps mainly through the 2-1-1 Information and Referral service and refers clients to several local agencies that specialize in healthcare. These agencies are further detailed in the section describing United Way’s partner agencies.

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Appendix A: Partner Agencies and Community MembersWhen we recognized that the Cradle To Career Initiative involves multiple organizations, we felt it best to gain a general understanding of the United Way partner agencies and services they provide to the community. These agencies (to the best of our knowledge) receive some funding from United Way. For each organization, we visited their websites to review and research what services they offer to the community. We would have liked to have developed a sort of “roadmap” for how each of these agencies fits into the Cradle To Career initiative but without specific information from United Way we cannot develop this information with certainty. Given that, we are simply including the list of partner agencies and the services that they provide to the community.

Amblicab/Disability ServicesWebsite: http://amblicab.org/ Amblicab is a service that helps mobility-impaired individuals with transportation. This is a para-transit service which supplements the city bus service.

American Cancer SocietyWebsite: http://www.cancer.org/index The American Cancer Society is a nonprofit agency which has partnered with United Way. This agency funds cancer research. Nationwide, it is the largest voluntary health organization within the United States.

American Red Cross, Pikes Peak ChapterWebsite: http://www.redcross.org/co/denver/about-us/leadership/pikes-peak-leadership The American Red Cross is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing disaster and emergency relief, supporting military families, coordinating and operating blood banks and providing CPR training and other health services. The organization itself operates around the globe, with 13 million volunteers in 187 countries.

Army Community Services, Fort CarsonWebsite: http://www.carson.army.mil/WFCPDigitalSignage/ArmyCommunityServices%20-%20FRC.html The Army Community Services organization is an agency with a set of programs and services designed to help military personnel and their families. The agency helps military families with everything from education and training, child and family services, health and wellness to other issues such as housing and recreation.

AspenPointe Health ServicesWebsite: http://www.aspenpointe.org/ AspenPointe is one of the largest Medicaid providers in the Pikes Peak region. This agency focuses on healthcare, specializing in mental healthcare. The also provide behavioral health services, counseling services, career services, education, housing, jail diversion/reintegration, telephonic wellness and care management. AspenPointe originated in 1875 and was called the “Springs Relief Society”, which delivered coal, lumber and clothing to the needy.

BethHaven, Inc.Website: http://bethhaveninc.org/

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BethHaven is a healthcare organization dedicated to providing residential services for people with mental disabilities, including those with severe mental illness who are unable to function on their own.

Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Colorado, Inc. - Pikes PeakWebsite: http://www.biglittlecolorado.org/ Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Colorado is an agency that provides mentors to at-risk youth. In the Pikes Peak region, the agency will provide approximately 440 mentors for at-risk youth. The need for this was recognized around the end of the 20th century and the movement began in earnest in the Denver area around the time of WWI. It was started by Claude Blake, a probation officer in Denver. Mr. Blake was attempting to address the lawless behavior of some youths by ensuring they received adequate guidance.

Boy Scouts of America, Pikes Peak CouncilWebsite: http://www.pikespeakbsa.org/ The purpose of the Boy Scouts of America--incorporated on February 8, 1910, and chartered by Congress in 1916--is to provide an educational program for boys and young adults to build character, to train in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and to develop personal fitness.

Boys & Girls Club of the Pikes Peak RegionWebsite: http://www.bgcppr.org/ Their purpose is to build self-esteem and life skills in children, ages 5-18, by providing hope and opportunity through quality programs and activities administered by trained professional staff in a positive, safe environment. They offer more than 30 national programs within the five core program areas: education and career development; character and leadership development; the arts; health and life skills; and sports, fitness and recreation.

Care and Share Food Bank for Southern ColoradoWebsite: http://careandshare.org/ The Care and Share Food Bank is an organization dedicated to alleviating hunger and to making sure all residents across the Pikes Peak region have access to healthy and nutritional foods.

Catholic Charities of Central ColoradoWebsite: http://ccharitiescc.org/ Catholic Charities is a faith-based organization dedicated to helping improve the lives of local residents through numerous programs. Catholic Charities runs the Marian House Soup Kitchen, which provides meals to hundreds of homeless and hungry local residents. The organization is currently working on the Hanifen Center, a place where other organizations can have offices offering services such as housing, employment/income, life skills, education, mental health, medical/physical health, transportation, and childcare referrals.

Cerebral Palsy Association of Colorado SpringsWebsite: http://cpappr.org/ The Cerebral Palsy Assocation is an organization dedicated to providing advocacy and services for people who suffer from Cerebral Palsy. Cerebral Palsy is a brain disorder often characterized by problems with motor skills.

Cheyenne Village, Inc.Website: http://www.cheyennevillage.org/

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Cheyenne Village is a nonprofit organization started in the 1970’s by former Mayor Andrew Marshall and his wife Peggy, who had a daughter with a disability. Cheyenne Village was the first agency to be licensed by the Colorado Department of Human Services and has been a nationally-recognized model of care for persons with disabilities.

Colorado Legal ServicesWebsite: http://www.coloradolegalservices.org/ Colorado Legal Services has been in existence for over 85 years and helps low-income residents obtain access to affordable legal assistance.

Community Partnership for Childhood Development (CPCD) Website: http://www.cpcdheadstart.org/ The CPCD is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children prepare to be successful in school. The agency has three main programs: Head Start, Early Head Start, the Colorado Preschool Program - and a community-funded preschool classroom.

Consumer Credit Counseling ServiceWebsite: http://www.cccs.net/ The CCCS was started by a group of Dallas businessmen in the 1970’s to help those who were struggling with debt. Today, this agency also receives support from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and works with consumers and lenders to help solve financial problems.

Early Connections Learning CentersWebsite: http://www.earlyconnections.org/ The Early Connections learning center has existed in the Pikes Peak region since 1897 and provides childcare for low-income residents.

Energy Resource CenterWebsite: http://www.erc-co.org/ The Energy Resource Center is a nonprofit agency that helps local residents with utility costs. This agency started in 1979 and helps residents make their homes more energy efficient, in order to lower their monthly energy costs.

Franciscan Community Counseling, Inc.Website: http://franciscancommunitycounseling.org/ Franciscan Community Counseling is a faith-based organization that provides services and assistance to those struggling with mental illness. They are similar to AspenPointe but have a more faith-based approach.

Girl Scouts of Colorado - Pikes Peak RegionWebsite: http://www.girlscoutsofcolorado.org/ The Girl Scouts of Colorado is an organization that operates within a model parallel to the Boy Scouts. They involve girls in activities designed to help youngsters develop leadership skills.

Griffith Centers for Children / CHINS UPWebsite: http://www.griffithcenters.org/

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The Griffith Centers for Children (which now includes Chins Up) is a program for children ages 0 to 25 who are either victims of abuse or who suffer from behavioral or mental problems. They provide a wide variety of services, from family preservation, day programs, education and counseling services. The original founder of the Griffith Centers was Emily Griffith, a teacher in 1927 who took orphaned and delinquent boys into her home to try to help them.

LULAC National Educational Service Center, Inc.Website: http://www.lnesc.org/site/1/Home The LULAC center is an organization dedicated to creating lifelong learners and leaders within the local Hispanic community.

Lutheran Family Services - Rocky MountainsWebsite: http://www.lfsco.org/ Lutheran Family Services is a faith-based organization dedicated to help children and families during times of struggle. They offer a wide variety of services such as adoption/pregnancy counseling, older adult and caregiver services, foster care, and refugee and asylum services.

Multiple Sclerosis Alliance of Southern ColoradoWebsite: http://www.msasoco.org/ The Multiple Sclerosis Alliance of Southern Colorado is a healthcare organization that assists local residents suffering from the debilitating disease of multiple sclerosis. They assist with support groups, healthcare and treatments, home safety and provide education regarding the disease.

Partners in HousingWebsite: http://www.partnersinhousing.org Partners in Housing helps homeless individuals and families transition from homelessness into self-sufficiency and stability. They also serve to help educate the general public on the problem of homelessness in our community.

Peak Vista Community Health CentersWebsite: http://www.peakvista.org/ Peak Vista Community Health Centers is a local nonprofit organization dedicated to helping local residents access basic healthcare services. They serve over 82,000 patients within our local region.

Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity, Inc.Website: http://www.pikespeakhabitat.org/ The Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity is an organization that strives to help local residents achieve affordable home ownership. This agency requires a significant amount of investment and effort on behalf of the homeowner but helps them with zero interest loans as a long-term solution to providing affordable housing in the region.

REACH Pikes PeakWebsite: http://www.ppcaa.org/ REACH Pikes Peak is a local organization driven to help low-income families become more self-sufficient. The organization offers the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program to help low-income residents file their taxes quickly and at no cost. The family stabilization services that Reach Pikes Peak offers focused on helping keep families from slipping through the cracks when dealing with an acute problem.

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Rocky Mountain Health Care ServicesWebsite: https://www.rmhcare.org/ Rocky Mountain Health Care Services is a healthcare organization dedicated to helping residents maintain their independence. Their Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) is geared specifically towards senior citizens. They also offer HealthRide mobility assistance and BrainCare, a program for people with brain damage.

Silver Key Senior Services, Inc.Website: http://www.silverkey.org/ Silver Key focuses on the needs of senior citizens in the community, offering case management, guardianship, nutrition and transportation services. Silver Key’s retail thrift store offers gently used items to seniors at deep discounts. Silver Key also takes donated durable medical equipment and repurposes this to help seniors in need. Nutrition programs include the Golden Circle Nutrition Program which offers affordable meals in a social setting, as well as Meals on Wheels, where nutritious meals are delivered to senior citizens in their homes. This agency is able to accept food stamps.

Southern Colorado AIDS ProjectWebsite: http://www.s-cap.org/ The Southern Colorado AIDS Project is an advocacy group for people afflicted with HIV and offers various services in prevention and care. Other specialized services include medical transportation, food pantry, emergency financial assistance, medications, insurance, housing assistance, legal referrals, substance abuse referrals, and assistance in accessing medical and dental care.

TESSAWebsite: http://www.tessacs.org/ TESSA is an organization dedicated to helping those who have been victims of domestic abuse. The agency offers services such as a confidential safe-house, victim advocates in the courtroom, counseling and children’s programs, a 24/7 crisis line and community outreach and education. TESSA is the only provider of confidential services specifically for victims of domestic violence.

The Arc of the Pikes Peak RegionWebsite: http://www.thearcppr.org/ The Arc is an agency which advocates for individuals with intellectual and development disabilities. The Arc has numerous thrift stores throughout the Pikes Peak region where gently used donated goods are used to raise funds to help provide support for individuals with disabilities.

The Resource Exchange, Inc.Website: http://www.tre.org/ The Resource Exchange is an agency dedicated towards helping people with disabilities. They partner with AspenPoine and Peak Vista Community Health Centers

The Salvation Army, El Paso CountyWebsite: http://www1.usw.salvationarmy.org/usw/www_usw_colosprings.nsf/

Tri-Lakes Cares

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Website: http://www.tri-lakescares.org/

Women's Resource Agency, Inc.Website: http://wrainc.org/ The Women’s Resource Agency is a Colorado-based agency that began in the 1970’s as the Virginia Neal Blue Center for women. This agency is related to United Way’s income initiatives in that it works to help both adult women and teenage girls achieve economic self-sufficiency. They are well known for their “Suit up for Success” program which has a boutique where low-income women can receive professional attire to wear to interviews.

Appendix B: United Way Board MembersKent Fortune

USAALiz Cobb

ERA Shields Real EstateStephannie Finley

UCCSLaura Muir

MOMENTUM Advertising & Public

RelationsJerry Forte

Colorado Springs Utilities

Nick GledichColorado SpringsSchool District 11

Carm MoceriCommunity Leader

Reinhold (Reini) Wigand

Merrill LynchJill Tiefenthaler

Colorado CollegeNoel Roberts

El Pomar FoundationJeff Greene

County AdministratorEl Paso County

Kelly BainDelta Solutions &

StrategiesMyron Pierce

Passion City ChurchCarlos Melendez

U.S. ArmySpace & Missile Defense

Tony EnsorSky Sox

Mike JorgensenRed Noland

Board Member Duties:

Review and guide organizational direction Ensure effective management and financial stewardship Represent Pikes Peak United Way in the community Bring the community's voice to Pikes Peak United Way's decision-making Maintain the community's trust in the organization

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Appendix C: United Way Staff

Jason B. WoodPresident and CEO

Amy Dinofrio, SPHRChief Operating Officer

Derek SpragueChief Financial Officer

Cindy AubreySenior Vice President of

Marketing

Carrie McKeeExecutive

Vice President

Deana HuntVice Presidentof Education

Community Voices“I work three jobs to support my kids. I can’t afford to live on my own, so I live with my sister. The cost of living here is so high.” – Community Conversation Participant, February 8“We need better job training so we can move people into better paying jobs.” – Community Conversation Participant, February 27th

The fact is, you have to work TWO full-time jobs to afford a two-bedroom apartment in this town.” – Single mother of two in transitional housing, Facebook, September 5th, 2014.

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Mile High United Way. (2015, April 9). Mile High United Way added 16 new photos to the album: A Community Conversation with U.S. Senator Cory Gardner — at Mile High United Way. Retrieved from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unitedwaydenver/photos/ms.c.eJxlz7ENwEAMQtGNIuM7sL3~;YlG6CLdPnwIEmKK62QEwHvwEJoqSN2GiPGvVS~_5aXW8yvblaUr6iv5DGVxpvii6Tn7x4iTnI.bps.a.10152656883326150.1073741865.55944541149/10152656885801150/?type=1&theater

Morton, S. F. (2004, Summer). Religion in the American West: Its History and Probable Future. Word & World, 24(3).

Navarro, L. (2011, July 10). United Way's Top Notch Year. Gazette Telegraph, p. Life; 48.

Navarro, L. (2012, June 13). Pikes Peak United Way Tops $5M Mark for an 8th Year. Gazette Telegraph, p. 3.

Navarro, L. (2015, March 15). AROUND TOWN: Imagination Library brings books to area children's mailboxes. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from www.gazette.com: http://gazette.com/around-town-imagination-library-brings-books-to-area-childrens-mailboxes/article/1547724

Navarro, L. (2015, March 15). Book Program Fuels Children's Love of Reading. Gazette Telegraph, p. 48.

Rodgers, J. (2013, July 29). United Way Leader Sees Partnerships as Key. Gazette Telegraph, pp. 13-17.

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Rodgers, J. (2014, July 14). "Cradle to Career" a United Focus. Gazette Telegraph, p. 15.

Talking of Tramps. (1886, January 25). Rocky Mountain News, p. 7.

Trials of Tramps. (1886, January 11). Rocky Mountain News, p. 8.

United Way. (2014, October 14). 10-14 Meeting - Themes and Summary Notes. Retrieved 2015, from http://www.ppunitedway.org: http://www.ppunitedway.org/documents/C2C%20Documents/10-14%20Meeting%20-%20Themes%20and%20Summary%20Notes.pdf

United Way. (2015). Cradle to Career Working Committee Orientation Summary Notes., (pp. 1-2). Colorado Springs. Retrieved 2015, from http://www.ppunitedway.org/documents/C2C%20Documents/Orientation%20Meeting%20Notes.pdf

Wade, P. (1977, August 26). United Way Needs Help. Gazette Telegraph, p. Local News; B.

Woodward, R. I. (2001). Saint John's Church in the Wilderness: A History of St. John's Cathedral in Denver, Colorado, 1860 - 2000. Denver: Prairie Publishers, Inc. Retrieved from Saint John's Cathedral: http://www.sjcathedral.org/About/History

Selected Picture Credits:Interview: https://a248.e.akamai.net/akamai-cache.trustedpartner.com/images/library/UnitedWayBrowardCounty2011/RRP_2979.jpg Jeff Greene: http://www.csindy.com/binary/16f1/news2.jpg VITA: http://www.uwcb.org/UserFiles/Image/2015VitaSiteEventsPage.png Job Shadowing: http://images.wisegeek.com/man-learning-from-another-man.jpg Emily: http://www.unitedwaydenver.org/sites/default/files/styles/310x240/public/Emily_800px.jpg?itok=g7WMS1DQ Homeless: http://www.unitedwaytc.org/sites/unitedwaytc.org/files/homeless%20chicago.jpg

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