Issue Focus

Issue Focus: A business model for United Ways where you decide what issue to impact, how to impact the issue, ask for the money to do it, and measure progress toward the bold goal.

Step one: What issue to impact

The first step in your issue focus journey will be to identify a singular issue that you want to impact in your community. This could be anything from poverty to third-grade reading. What matters is that it is an issue your United Way could lead and create a community-wide bold goal that measures lives changed.

Step two: How to impact the issue

After you determine your issue, you will need to decide what actions you are going to take to move toward your bold goal. United Ways have done this in multiple ways, from creating collaborations, narrowing their funding to only partner agencies working on the issue, or even running their own direct service program. No matter what you choose, remember to make sure that you can prove these actions are moving you toward your goal.

Step three: Ask for the money to do it

Once you have determined the actions you are going to take, you will go out and ask for the money to do it. Unlike the traditional United Way model that asks for money first, then figures out how to spend it, you will figure out how you will spend it first and then ask for the money to do it. With an issue focus, success isn’t measured in dollars raised but in lives changed.

Step four: Measure your progress to the bold goal

Finally, after you have identified your issue, decided upon your actions, and asked for the money to do it, you will start measuring your progress. This is the hardest but most important part of being issue focused. You will need to keep up with your partners to collect data that proves that what you are funding is moving the community toward the bold goal.

Common Challenges and the Issue Focus Solution

Challenge: United Ways are experiencing declining workplace campaigns

Solution: With an issue focus you will diversify your revenue beyond workplace campaigns. Workplace campaigns have been dying for a while and they will never return to their former glory. When you focus on an issue, you will be able to raise additional resources from grants, events, planned giving, and sponsorships that will reduce your dependence on workplace campaigns.

Challenge: United Way struggles to explain what it is they do

Solution: With an issue focus you will create a clear, one sentence explanation of what it is your United Way does. No longer will you tell donors that you impact education, income, and health. Rather, you will simply tell them that “donating to United Way helps halt hunger” or “donating to United Way helps lift families out of poverty.”

Challenge: United Way is spread too thin to effectively impact education, income, and health

Solution: With an issue focus you will be able to put all of your financial and staff resources into a single issue, such as hunger. By doing this you will be able to make a more meaningful impact that moves your community closer to solving the issue, not just putting a band-aid on it.

If you want your United Way to remain relevant and survive for years to come, you need to switch to an issue focus.

Four Easy Ways to Learn How an Issue Focus Will Transform Your United Way

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