Executive Director's Welcome

I am pleased and honored to be the new Executive Director of your United Way. I have been on the job for several months now and my appreciation for the engaged support and concern shown by our community on behalf of those less fortunate continues to grow. We have a county full of donors and volunteers along with a great network of agencies who are taking action to help better and advance the lives of low income and disadvantaged individuals and families. We are a community full of innovative and committed organizations and people.

United Way’s mission is to strengthen our community by mobilizing people and resources to meet identified human needs. For me, this means ongoing community building to:

Raise additional money from more diverse sources to fund and support the work of the network of non-profit agencies providing critical services
Mobilize the private and public sectors around community needs
Help strengthen the collaboration and excellence of the people and agencies providing services – low income customers and donors alike have the expectation that we maximize our limited resources.

Funds raised in our annual campaign go to support dedicated programs in over 35 agencies across Thurston County . We distribute grants following review of competitive proposals by our volunteer panels around these

three United Way goals:

Help children and youth learn and succeed
Promote financial stability for families and individuals
Improve people’s health

Under the leadership of Pam Toal, our previous Executive Director, and our Board, United Way of Thurston County has evolved this past five years well beyond the “old” United Way model of distributing funds to the same agencies each year no questions asked. Our community investment panels review progress reports by agencies that help ensure quality as well as enable us to better understand our overall impact. United Way is focusing on prevention and investing on the root causes of needs related to our goals above. We have helped launch and support a range of initiatives as described in this newsletter.

We will continue to improve our value for our community. I welcome your input and perspective as well as your involvement in United Way. Live United! is not just a slogan, it is an aspiration about how we can make a better community together. Email me at pknox@unitedway-thurston.org with your thoughts.

Thanks!