United Way Of The Bay Area

Sparkpoint: sparkpoint centers work with families to meet basic needs, increase income, build credit, increase savings, and reduce debt through offering basic needs, career, educational, and financial services. Sparkpoint provides free financial coaching to work one-on-one with clients both virtually and in person to recognize behavioral outcomes, set goals, brainstorm strategies, and develop realistic action plans to move people toward financial prosperity. Sparkpoint centers also provide basic needs support, including connecting clients to housing and food resources and benefits screening and advocacy. Throughout the pandemic, sparkpoint centers moved toward a hybrid model of services to meet clients both virtually and in-person to better support access to public benefits and financial coaching services. In fiscal year 2024, sparkpoint provided services to approximately 27,300 individuals throughout the san francisco bay area region through 12 sparkpoint centers and over 20 service locations. Most community members sought out sparkpoint to access supportive services related to financial services and getting help meeting their basic needs. A total of over 2,400 participated in free one-on-one financial coaching services to reach their financial goals, among whom 65% were able to make progress toward their financial goals after enrolling in sparkpoint and approximately 1,150 enrolled in public benefits.

211: 211 connects users with health and human services in their community through calls, texts, and web search. Uwba 211 serves san francisco, santa clara, san mateo, marin, napa and solano counties. In fiscal year 2024, 211 answered approximately 43,600 calls and texts providing bay area residents with information and a total of approximately 94,000 referrals to a variety of resources to address their needs. 211 is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in over 150 languages. The number one need of callers is housing related, and since 2023, 211 has screened more than 18,000 callers for housing stability to ensure bay area residents can access everything from shelter information and tenants' rights resources to rental assistance and supportive housing.

Emergency food & shelter program ("efsp"): efsp is critical to uwba's poverty-fighting agenda. This year, efsp entered its 40th year of funding safety net programs. This federal funding is allocated to the federal emergency management agency ("fema"), which works with united way worldwide as the fiscal agent for the program. Efsp is a unique public-private partnership between the federal government and the united way system. Since its inception, uwba and local boards (local boards are mandated local committees that have oversight of the federal funding) have allocated federal funding to hundreds of food and shelter programs. For this most recent round of funding, efsp allocated approximately $2,444,000 to agencies in eight counties. Approximately 172,000 unduplicated individuals were served by one of the 105 efsp-funded agencies in the bay area during the current grant period. While this is not funding raised by uwba, it is vital that uwba expertise and relationships are leveraged to support our local food and shelter programs.emergency assistance network ("ean"): ean is a collaboration with seven local santa clara county partner agencies that offers assistance to families and individuals experiencing emergency situations. This collaborative provides food assistance, rent and mortgage aid, utility assistance, medical and transportation aid, often alongside case management and financial education. Uwba provided the ean agencies a total of $140,000 in grants to support that work, as well as providing in-kind convening and staff support to the network. This year the ean served approximately 90,000 individuals at food pantries and distributed over $10 million in direct assistance as a network. Ean agencies assisted approximately 3,800 households (approximately 11,000 individuals) in the community specifically with housing and utility assistance.labor community services: the labor community services program is a comprehensive resource for working families. Uwba labor liaisons, placed with three local central labor councils, provide information and referral, direct hardship assistance, high-impact workforce programs, community organizing, immigration legal services, and civic engagement opportunities. Uwba's three labor community services staff served approximately 950 households (approximately 2,000 individuals) with direct financial assistance for hardships or provided navigation services and connection to other local social services agencies.youth opportunity pathways: youth opportunity pathways, a uwba program provides career exploration and readiness opportunities for young people aged 14-28. This year, uwba continued to partner across the region. Through partnerships, we provide youth with mentorship, job readiness activities, and college access support. We engaged with 6 community partners, serving over 3,600 youth. Over 1200 youth received mentorship services, and 915 enrolled in further skills training or participated in career exploration events. 560 youth participated in internships or other work-based learning activities. We hosted our annual college essay review event which supported 20 youth in their college application journey. Additionally, our signature event, on track, was hosted at the oakland museum and had 20 corporate partners volunteer to table and mentor young people. Housing justice: uwba continued support of our housing justice grantees. Approximately $347,000 in uwba grantmaking served 2,000 individuals in over 1,600 households. We continued our community ambassador grantmaking efforts, training and supporting uwba ambassadors to review applications and awards. The ambassadors led a process to grant $150,000 to 8 grantees. Uwba launched a region-wide public will-building campaign, "learn, understand, act," to engage and encourage people to advocate for local and regional policy changes that will increase affordable housing in the bay area. Public policy: uwba recognizes that to achieve uwba's goal of ending poverty in the community, we must advance public policies that support uwba's mission. Uwba's public policy team influences policy and engages in advocacy at all levels of government. In fiscal year 2024, uwba led 12 policy campaigns at the regional and local levels focused on increasing availability of affordable housing and expanding tenant protections for renters. In partnership with united ways of california ("uwca"), uwba served as the regional advocacy coordinator to mobilized uwba, united way wine country, united way santa cruz, and united way monterey to meet with state elected officials and advocate for living wages, housing justice, tax credits, and the 211 helpline. We also partnered with california community colleges chancellor's office to conduct a policy landscape analysis and evaluation of the implementation of basic needs centers in community colleges throughout the state. Towards the end of the year, we partnered with congressman mullin to hold an education event highlighting the social impacts of the federal poverty line act and the uwca real cost measure.