COMMUNITY IMPACT: HELP US FOCUS SESSIONS
Your Voice Shaped Our Path Forward
In July 2025, our community came together to answer an important question:
What matters most for the Fox Cities right now, and what should we focus on for the future?
Through our Help Us Focus sessions on priority setting, more than 100 community members—donors, nonprofit partners, volunteers, and residents—joined us to explore local data and help set our funding and engagement priorities for the coming year.
These conversations centered on three of United Way’s impact areas:
Healthy Community
Youth Opportunity
Financial Security
What We Heard
The message from our community was clear: we need a “both/and” approach—meeting urgent needs today while investing in long-term solutions that address the root causes of those needs.
Dive Deeper: The full report linked below includes an executive summary, charts and graphs, and recommendations based on community input. These recommendations were approved by the United Way Fox Cities Board of Directors on August 5, 2025.
Key themes that emerged:
Immediate Needs Matter
Crisis response and essentials like housing, mental health support, childcare, and food access must remain top priorities for the 2026 grant cycle.
The Future Can't Wait
There’s strong support for prevention, pathways to opportunity, and systems change—building a stronger community where fewer people need crisis services in the first place.
Collaboration is Key
Our community wants funders, nonprofits, and systems to align priorities and resources so that efforts are coordinated and sustainable.
How This Shapes Our Next Steps
Based on your input, the 2026 grant cycle will fund across all three focus areas, with a priority on crisis response and daily essentials. At the same time, we’ll begin strategic work toward prevention and systems change—through collaboration, community engagement, and targeted initiatives that address root causes.
Our role at United Way Fox Cities is unique: we bridge the gap between immediate crisis response and the long-term changes needed for everyone to thrive. That’s the balance our community is asking for—and it’s the one we will deliver.
Why this matters
The challenges facing the Fox Cities are complex and interconnected. Our community continues to experience urgent needs alongside opportunities to strengthen the systems that support everyone’s well-being. By listening to community voices, we can address the needs of today while building the foundation for a better tomorrow.
thank you
We’re deeply grateful to everyone who contributed their time, ideas, and expertise to this process. Your voice is part of a community vision guiding our work ahead.
UNITED IS THE WAY
United is the Way to meet today’s needs, build tomorrow’s change, and create a community where everyone can thrive.
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