United Way of Southwest Alabama

The United Way of Southwest Alabama works to strengthen communities by focusing on uniting and mobilizing resources in support of the building blocks for a better life: Education, Financial Stability, Health, and Essentials. United Way of Southwest Alabama is creating real, lasting change right here by focusing on the building blocks of a better life. We strengthen neighborhoods, bolster the health of our communities and we change the lives of those who walk by us everyday. For 95 years, our contributions to local community partners have helped those most in need, right here in our community.

UWSWA works to strengthen communities by focusing on uniting and mobilizing resources in support of

Goal One: Focus on policies that help our community respond, recover, reimage and rebuild systems in the wake of the health and economic crisis from COVID-19; recent hurricanes; and address inequities.

Goal Two: Build awareness and engagement by increasing the public’s knowledge of UWSWA’s brand through targeted messaging.

Goal Three: Develop an internal mechanism to organize and make more accessible the Community Impact needs, outcomes, and reporting data.

United Way with the South Alabama Coalition of Nonprofits invested in providing a series of Divisity, Equity, and Inclusion workshops. The free workshops provide training for community partners' staff at all levels of the organization; giving them the opportunity to learn about equitable hiring, board development, team building, discovering bias, creating DEI policy statements, and more.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on our local community in terms of the loss of jobs, of individuals’ and families’ incomes, of housing, of food security, of business, and created a major healthcare crisis in its wake. UWSWA has worked to prevent the spread of COVID-19 since March of 2020. UWSWA gathered masks, hand sanitizer, bottled water, nursing shoes, and hygienic kits from various sources to distribute to our 46 partner agencies and to other nonprofits across Southwest Alabama. To date, we have distributed 242,250 masks; 500 bottles of hand sanitizer; 20 cases of toilet paper; 156 cases of water; 200 hygiene kits: and 1,389 pairs of shoes to health care workers and to nonprofit employees working the front line in the fight against COVID-19. In response to the pandemic, UWSWA has convened volunteers, partner agencies, other nonprofits, businesses and industry, and local governments to address the needs of our community. Through these convenings, UWSWA has raised funds and gathered volunteers to assist in the disbursement process. Similarly, to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, UWSWA has provided fast and direct economic assistance for workers, families, and nonprofits, and preserved jobs for our local workforce. By May of 2020, UWSWA had raised its first round of funds; created a process to distribute these funds; sought and received Requests for Proposals; gathered and trained volunteers to participate in the allocations process; and dispersed funds to our partner agencies through two different funding streams: the Human Needs Assistance Fund and the Nonprofit Sustainability Fund. Since the first distribution, UWSWA has made three other rounds of allocations for COVID-19 assistance. To date, UWSWA has dispersed $327,638.13. This is in addition to raising and dispersing funds related to Hurricanes Sally and Zeta and to raising funds for UWSWA’s Annual Community Campaign.