SWCO United Way Expands Mission as “Team Up”

United Way of Southwest Colorado parted ways with the internationally renowned fundraising organization this summer, and the reasons may surprise you. You are watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Crystal Mart Durango and the Fort Lewis College Center for Innovation. I am Sadie Smith. Southwest Colorado Nonprofits have benefited from United Way’s fundraising efforts for more than 50 years. Its fall fundraising drive benefits, dozens of nonprofits, and it supplements individual donations with grants and several fundraising events throughout the year. In 2024, United Way of Southwest Colorado raised $1.8 million and distributed more than 1.2 million in grants to agencies in the five county area. But President and Chief Executive Officer Lynn Urban said the organization had more ambitious plans than acting as a pass through agency for donations. It wanted to organize teams of agencies to solve community problems that no one organization could solve alone.

There are United Ways all over the world, each doing things for their own communities, and a lot of it is just fundraising and granting, which is great. But we had developed a lot of work that was far beyond that. It was building these amazing collaborations across our region that are making real positive change.

One early community project in Montezuma County reduced childhood hunger by 50% in five years.

One that we had in Montezuma County was the Food Security Action team. They were focused on reducing food insecurity for children. The number when they started was 24% of children in Montezuma County were food insecure. After five years after working together, that number was 12%. So what do I mean by working together? These are people who are from all different organizations. So from the health department, from the school district, from CSU extension, from Opinion Project, all these different nonprofits and schools and groups working together, coming up with shared strategies, and then we help them find the money to implement it.

A Durango project, coordinated programs for youth to help ’em recover physically and mentally from the isolation they experienced during the COVID Pandemic.

So we said, okay, what’s keeping kids from participating outside of school time? And the number one thing was cost. So we developed a countywide scholarship program, and I’m happy to say after this summer, which was our third summer of Scholarshipping summer camps, we have had a thousand scholarships for kids to go to summer camp for free and have those great experiences.

The United Way Board deliberated for three years before it announced its departure from the national organization earlier this summer. The name Team up reflects the organization’s new mission to solve community problems collaboratively with teams of agencies. And it saves the nonprofit $25,000 a year in United Way membership fees.

We have had a tremendously positive response, and we weren’t sure what the response would be. We thought it would be positive because we put a lot of thought behind this move, but hearing from our donors that they really appreciate that we are focused on community, that we’re focused on making a difference that we can actually measure, and that we are flexible and collaborative. Like instead of duplicating, you know, we’re really trying to help everybody work together, that that makes them happy, it makes us happy, and it makes us more effective.

To learn more about teamup, visit the organization’s website and to find more local news about the region, visit Durango Local News, or Montezuma local news. I am Sadie Smith.