United Way of Deschutes County shifts focus

United Way of Deschutes County is undergoing a significant change. The 65-year-old organization wants to have a more direct impact on children in challenging environments.

The root of the organization’s efforts will remain to provide basic needs to the most vulnerable populations and investing in preventing and development.

There are about 1,800 United Way organizations in 41 countries. The Deschutes County nonprofit’s board president, Eli Ashely, said childhood trauma is a root cause of many mental and financial issues faced by community members.

Part of the new focus marked at Wednesday night’s “Transformation Celebration” will be reducing childhood trauma, whether from family abuse or hunger. To do this, United Way hopes local nonprofits will partner to identify where those children are and help them.

“I think we are finding people were providing the same funding over and over again to many organizations in the community, but maybe not seeing the results,” Ashley said. “They were certainly doing a lot of good things, like feeding the hungry and providing health care, but not really getting upstream to try and prevent those things from happening in the first place.”

Director of Marketing and Development Diana Fischett, said each United Way is it’s own entity that focuses on the most important needs within that community.

“I think that some of the research has shown us there is a more direct and impactful way to address the issues we’ve always been working on,” Fischetti said.

She also said one in four people have been touched in some way by a United Way-funded program or service. The current campaign goal is to raise $1.5 million by next June.

United Way of Deschutes County is a 21 Cares for Kids Partner. Learn more at https://www.deschutesunitedway.org/