Bold community impact starts with bold goals.
Our Bold Goals are our community’s collective vision for how to make our region even stronger for everyone who calls it home. Helping families and individuals in poverty requires more than treating symptoms, it requires a total systems change to tackle the root causes of societal problems.
Through our Bold Goals initiative and collaborative efforts, our community can come together to align resources and solve the problems no single donor, organization, or government agency can accomplish alone. Together, we make our communities more vibrant and successful. It’s not about short-term charity, it’s about lasting change.
Successful Children
Improving Early Childhood Development & Mentoring Programs
Long-term solutions to the toughest challenges our community faces begin with supporting our children’s development and education. That’s why our number one Bold Goal at UWNCO is a community filled with successful children. We bring together agencies and organizations who are fighting to improve early childhood literacy rates, providing positive mentorship opportunities, and increasing rates of kindergarten readiness and high school graduation.
Healthy Families
Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods
Healthy communities are successful communities. Every person in our region deserves a safe, warm place to live, dependable access to nutritious food and other necessities, and healthcare services for mind and body. At UWNCO, we leverage funding and resources for organizations working for safe and affordable housing, increased quality of life, and vibrant neighborhoods for our community.
Self-Sufficient Residents
Enhanced Workforce Development & Leadership Opportunities
Families and individuals in our community are facing financial obstacles that prevent a good quality of life. Collaborations convened by United Way of North Central Ohio are fighting to put every person in our community on the path toward financial empowerment and self-sufficiency. This work starts with access to services, job training, and credit counseling and money management programs.
Results-Based Accountability (RBA)
Community impact through community involvement.
Our drive to implement bold solutions to achieve bold goals for the community is powered by our commitment to Results-Based Accountability, or RBA.
RBA is a common-sense process that helps us and the organizations we fund challenge and overcome the assumptions that can be barriers to progress. It builds collaboration and consensus across the community, and most importantly, it uses data and transparency to ensure accountability for the performance of our programs. Using RBA ensures that United Way leverages funding in the most effective way, helping the most people.
RBA uses data and transparency to ensure accountability for the performance of our programs. Using RBA ensures that United Way leverages funding in the most effective way, helping the most people.
A shared vision for change.
Collective community impact through RBA begins with a common agenda – common understanding of the problem and a shared vision for change – and an agreement for data collection and measurement. Together with community leaders and local social service agencies, UWNCO identified four statements that describe our shared vision for the future of our community and decided on the data indicators that would measure success:
All residents in north central Ohio live in vibrant neighborhoods.
Indicators:
- % of residents with gross rent payments higher than 30% of household income
- % of residents with gross mortgage payments higher than 30% of household income
- % of occupied housing units
All children in north central Ohio will achieve their full potential.
Indicators:
- % of students reading at proficiency by 4th grade
- % of students who receive a high school diploma in 4 years
- % of students who demonstrate kindergarten readiness
- % of preschoolers with access to accredited early childhood programs
All children & adults in north central Ohio are mentally & physically healthy.
Indicators:
- % of people with access to mental health services
- Rate of abused and neglected children
- % of food insecure households
- Suicide rate
All residents in north central Ohio are able to meet their financial needs.
Indicators:
- % of households with incomes greater than 200% of the poverty rate
- Rate of unemployment
- % of 16 to 23 year olds not working or in school (disconnected youth)
Using the collective impact model to bring change to the community.
Community change through the collaboration model used by United Way of North Central Ohio relies on agencies, organizations, government, and community members working together to ensure their plan will meet the five conditions of Collective Impact.
Common Agenda.
All collaboration participants have a shared vision for change that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving the problem through agreed-upon actions.
Shared Measurement.
All participants agree on how to measure and report on collaboration progress, with a short list of common indicators used to drive learning and improvement.
Mutually Reinforcing Activities.
The collaboration participant’s programs and activities are individualized but still coordinated to produce the outcomes outlined by the Common Agenda.
Continuous Communication.
Success of the collaboration requires all participating agencies to engage in frequent and structured open communication to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and create common motivation.
Backbone Support.
Creating and managing successful collective impact requires a dedicated staff to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative and to coordinate all participants.
How UWNCO and Our Partners Use RBA to Increase Impact
RBA is Results-Based Accountability. RBA uses a data-driven, decision-making process to help communities and organizations get beyond talking about problems to taking action to solve problems. It is a simple, common sense framework that everyone can understand. RBA starts with ends and works backward, towards means. The “end” or difference you are trying to make looks slightly different if you are working on a broad community level or are focusing on your specific program or organization.
United Way of North Central Ohio is committed to using RBA and collective impact throughout our funding process. Our organization and our partners use the resources below to help during our application, funding, and reporting cycles.
RBA Glossary
RESULT. Results are conditions of well-being for entire populations – children, adults, families or communities – stated in plain language.
INDICATOR. Indicators are measures that help quantify the achievement of a population result. They answer the question “How would we recognize these results in measurable terms if we fell over them.” Indicators refer only to whole populations, not programs.
PROGRAM. A program, agency, or service system responsible for helping reach the stated RESULTS. Programs are not themselves STRATEGIES; they are expressions of strategies.
PERFORMANCE MEASURE. Performance Measures are measures of how well public and private programs and agencies are working. The most important performance measures tell us whether the clients or customers of the service are better off. Performance Measure can apply to entire agencies, service delivery systems, or individual programs.
CURRENT VALUE. The current level of achievement for an Indicator or Performance Measure at a point in time.
TARGET VALUE. A desired level of achievement for an Indicator or Performance Measure.
Basic RBA Principles
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RBA Definitions.
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Selecting Performance Measures
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Accountability: The Whole vs. the Parts
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Turn the Curve Thinking
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