“Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.” Anthony D'Angelo

What We Do

United Way is committed to improving lives and making SLO County a better place to live. Through our focus on education, income and health, we are impacting the lives of everyone in the community—not only through the grants we give, but also through programs that directly benefit those who call SLO County home. If you are not familiar with United Way, we hope you will take some time to look through our website to learn more about everything we do; the links and brief descriptions below are a great place to start.

Community Impact – Making the community stronger and healthier takes a collaborative effort and a close look at the causes of our community’s most challenging problems; that’s why United Way works with many partners—individuals, businesses and governments—to create and sustain innovative programs that promote lasting change in SLO County. These programs include Born Learning, FamilyWize, Money Talks for Teens and Youth Board, among others. To see a summary of our work in these three areas of impact click here. 

Special Funding – To help local nonprofit agencies do their good work better, United Way offers special opportunities for funding in addition to annual Community Impact Fund grants. These include emergency grants, a three-year Community Collaboration Grant, annual Youth Board grants and the Innovation Award.

Emergency Food & Shelter Program – United Way of SLO County is the local fiscal agent of federal funds distributed through the Emergency Food & Shelter Program. A board of local volunteers coordinates the application and fund distribution process to agencies that serve clients through food and shelter services.

Donor Designated Contributions – Donor Designated Contributions – United Way assists donors in helping fund charities of their choice.  Every year, more than $500,000 in contributions to nonprofit agencies near and dear to our donors’ hearts are made via United Way.  Because the agencies receive these donations outside of our grant process, United Way is not able to track the usage and results of these donations.  Donors are free to designate to any agency with a current 501(c)(3) status.  Click here to see a list of where our donors chose to designate their gifts in 2011.

Special Events – United Way staff, volunteers and partners are kept busy throughout the year with annual events such as the Annual Recognition Event, Flavor of SLO, Make a Difference Day and Share a Tree.

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