UPDATE FROM UNITED WAY WORLDWIDE

By Brian Lachance,
​UWW Chief of Staff and Liaison to UWRA 

​I enjoyed seeing a number of longtime friends during the June 30th Town Hall for UWRA members. I look forward to our next time together on October 6th and encourage all of you to participate in the live dialogue. In the meantime, here is a bit of what’s happening at United Way Worldwide (UWW). We are now in our fifth month working with Interim President and CEO Neeraj Mehta. During his time, Neeraj has stayed focused on stabilizing the brand, the network, and our culture. 

 Toward Stabilizing the Brand...
 We are nearly at the half-way point of our LIVE UNITED Initiative, a spring and summer online campaign (see below). You may have heard that NFL star Russell Wilson and his wife Ciara agreed to serve as co-chairs. They join a number of our United Way ambassadors and influencers in helping to push out information about the good work United Way is doing in communities around the world. Russell and Ciara have been generous with their time and talent, recording a heartfelt video to launch the initiative and amplify our content across their social media channels. To date, we’ve generated more than 2 million impressions across United Way Worldwide social media platforms, including content that spotlights the transformative work going on in local United Ways.

Toward Stabilizing the Network...
Listening, listening, and more listening. Neeraj has engaged United Way leaders through dozens of one-on-one meetings with Board Chairs and CEOs, and dozens more in-network and small group meetings, including the Council of States and the Major Market Forum. What he and others have heard informs the work of two task forces, which have been established to set a new path forward.

Toward Stabilizing our Culture...
The two task forces – one to consider our business strategy (including network governance) and the other to consider our culture – are now up and running. Both task forces include representation from local United Way leaders, Board members, and UWW staff. Their aim is to create critical new frames for the future of United Way. The Board is relying on these task forces to bring forward their best recommendations for strengthening our network models and suggestions on how we make decisions together.

​The work of the Business Strategy and Culture Task Forces will be instrumental in laying the foundation for the next UWW CEO. The Executive Search Committee continues to work apace. They have finalized the position description and recruitment materials, and the search is underway. We’ll share more information as it progresses. In the meantime, I hope you are all enjoying a safe, healthy, and joyful summer.