Our New Direction: Community Impact
United Way and the Community Foundation teamed up with a group of community leaders to formulate a Strategic Community Impact Plan, also known as SCIP. Knowing that our organizations and many others needed such an assessment to make decisions about donor investments, we decided to work together to begin creating an impact agenda for Washington County.
A volunteer force of 200 was divided into focus groups and are charged with looking at issues, prioritizing the most immediate concerns and establishing specific, measurable indicators and attainable goals to improve lives. They were tasked with updating data, which was originally outlined in a Community Report Card published by the Hagerstown-Washington County Industrial Foundation, also know as CHIEF, in 2007. New community indicators, beyond what was covered in the Community Report Card were examined, including vulnerable populations of the disabled and elderly, homelessness and hunger. The Focus Groups met monthly and recommended goals and strategies to address the prioritized issues. An Impact Council selected from these goals and strategies to establish a published plan. United Way has chosen several areas from the plan and will focus and align its work to achieving those goals and strategies.
The community-wide SCIP process has been modeled after a similar project in Spartanburg, S.C., which also included a partnership by a local foundation and United Way.
Click below to view and print our Goals and Strategies At-A-Glance
