Courtesy of United Way of Greater St. Louis
Michelle Tucker
The United Way of Greater St. Louis has some impressive stats. It serves over a million people annually, supports 160 different agencies, and has raised nearly $3 billion for the community in its century of helping people in the St. Louis area. One in three people in the St. Louis region is impacted by the organization. Maybe most notable is how everyone seems to have a “United Way story,” says Michelle Tucker, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater St. Louis. “It is neighbors helping neighbors, family members helping family members, and colleagues helping colleagues,” Tucker says. And it’s about to celebrate its 100th anniversary. St. Louis Magazine talked to Tucker about where United Way is seeing needs, its plans for the future, and who is volunteering today.
Where is United Way seeing needs in St. Louis right now?
Basic needs and wraparound supports are areas of strong focus. We’re seeing families needing help with bringing together the income or the support necessary to pay rent or stabilize their housing. Especially through COVID—COVID compounded what was already challenging. Nearly 43 percent of families across the region struggle at some point to meet basic needs on a monthly basis.
We are also focused on jobs and workforce development. Mental health is definitely a concern. When we think about what we’re seeing across the country, our community is not immune to what is happening.
How is United Way changing to meet those needs?
One of the resources that we offer is our 211 hotline, which receives about 120,000 calls, texts and requests for help annually. It’s our 24/7 support line, and it’s for people to call and connect to resources that can help them with a variety of needs, like finding food and shelter, workforce development and job training, and mental health supports. We have strong partnerships with organizations beyond our network, and we’re able to help people navigate to the most appropriate and urgent resources during difficult times.
What about the Greater St. Louis Community Information Exchange?
The CIE is a game-changer. It’s actually an integrated technology platform and a way for a network of resources and partners in that community to coordinate the services for a person who calls in with a slate of issues. We’re able to probe further and better assess the immediate and long-term needs of a person. So often when a person calls 211 or reaches out for support, they don’t typically present with just one issue. If they say, “We need food,” then chances are there’s another situation unfolding. They are probably under- or unemployed.
This allows us to make a fuller assessment and focus on the whole person as we intake on the hotline. What we’re then able to do is coordinate multiple services and make sure the caller or client is connected to our resource network. Right now, we have nearly 200 partners that are part of this network. We can take a wraparound approach to helping the person, so it’s not just “Give them food” and assume the challenge is resolved.
Because we accelerated the rollout of CIE due to COVID, nearly 15,000 people were helped through CIE by early 2022.
You’re also seeing a need for resources to bridge the digital divide.
We’ve leaned in close because we heard people—especially when the schools closed—did not have access to computers. We were able to identify partners through the network who provided additional resources in that space.
That definitely wasn’t a concern 100 years ago.
One hundred years ago, the areas of focus were feeding people, shelter, education, and providing medical care. We think about that, and looking at priorities in the community today, they’re similar. Although it is nuanced, like you said. When you think about workforce development and the digital divide, it kind of goes hand in hand to think about access. Can someone really job hunt as efficiently as the next person if they can’t get to a website? Or if they can’t fill out an application? Or if they can’t connect to a special training program that’s online? Those things are very real challenges for people every day.
Where is United Way going from here?
We are in proactive mode. We’re looking at systemic challenges and asking, “OK, how do we think about this issue differently? How do we remove barriers for some who are disproportionately impacted?” It allows us to go deeper.
I’ll give an example: United Way’s role in workforce development conversations is to make sure planning groups understand that it’s not just us focusing as a community on putting people to work. Rather, it’s understanding everything that enables that success once people are given the opportunity. If they’ve got challenges at home that are well beyond employment, then you have to address the whole person, the whole challenge, and the family challenge. It will take more than just giving someone a job and saying, “Oh, it’s resolved.” Many times, we have to deploy wraparound supports as well. For example, we have partnerships with Lyft where we are able to provide some transportation stability until a person is able to get to work or to get to job training.
Who is volunteering with United Way?
The age range is across the spectrum. We are seeing more and more young people sign up. The other thing we’re trying to do is make it easier to volunteer. We offer an initiative called Service To-Go, and that means that we take volunteer events to companies and host them on site. If someone tells us, “We can’t get away,” we say, “Oh, we have a solution for you.” We will bring Smile Kits and other things to your office. That way, at least people feel like they’re contributing—which they are—and it helps to build that culture of giving. They can then help us to deliver them to the nonprofit that’s benefiting.
