United Way provides funding for six new agency programs

(Cleveland, Ohio) July 23, 2004
United Way Services of Greater Cleveland has allocated funding for six new agency programs beginning July 2004. The agencies and programs approved for funding are:

• Adult Guardianship Services - Provides guardianship services to people deemed incompetent by the court. It serves older adults as well as younger people with severe mental illness. The additional funding will help support the Adult Protective Services program.
• City Year Cleveland - Offers young adults an opportunity to spend ten months in community service projects and receive scholarship money at the end of the term. The additional funding will help support the Youth Development program.
• Mental Health Services for Homeless Persons - Provides emergency shelter, psychiatric assessment and treatment, 24-hour crisis stabilization for adults and children in psychiatric crisis and community support services to homeless people with severe mental disability. Additionally, this agency provides information and referral and suicide prevention services to all Cuyahoga County residents. The additional funding will go toward providing emergency shelter.
• Neighborhood Leadership Institute - Provides leadership training and initiates other neighborhood-based, metropolitan-wide processes for developing community leadership, infrastructure and resources. It strives to develop the capacity for families and communities to work together to participate in, take responsibility for, and hold accountable the institutions and public systems that affect their lives personally and communally on the local, regional, national, and international levels. The additional funding will help support the volunteer development program.
• Retired and Senior Volunteer Program - Recruits and refers senior adults to meaningful volunteer assignments with nonprofit organizations in the Cleveland area. Also provides training for professional staff who deal with volunteer activities. The additional funding will help support volunteer development for this agency as well.
• Voices for Children of Greater Cleveland - Operates as a nonpartisan collection of agencies and organizations that advocate and lobby for a wide range of issues affecting children and their families. The additional funding will help support advocacy.

"We are delighted to fund these agency programs through the generous contributions provided by United Way donors," said Steven R. Borstein, United Way's Community Investment Division volunteer chair.

"The process to include new agency programs in the United Way funding allocations is quite extensive for two reasons. First, we must be assured the programs meet the mission and quality standards that United Way promises its donors it will deliver. And second, limited resources mandate that we must select programs that will have the greatest positive impact on our community," he said.

Borstein explains that the Community Investment Committee evaluated 17 agency program proposals requesting funding this year. The committee of volunteers carefully considers each proposal asking questions such as: Is this program providing a crucial service using a strategy that is likely to succeed? Then after narrowing the initial field of proposals, further evaluation includes agency interviews that lead to further refining and finally the decision to fund selected programs.

"The volunteer committee devotes countless hours to this process. We believe that their choices are excellent. I am particularly pleased that the programs selected reach far into our communities, meeting the needs of young and older people struggling with a variety of difficulties," said K. Michael Benz, President and CEO of United Way Services of Greater Cleveland.