Two United Way of Greater Charlottesville staff recently had the opportunity to attend in the The National ALICE Summit hosted by United Way of Northern New Jersey in Miami, Florida. Ravi Cooper, our President & CEO, and Ella Jordan, our Vice President of School Readiness Impact, joined other United Way leaders last month to share insights, collaborate, and gain new ideas about how to best help our local ALICE population.
ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. This represents 29% of Virginia families who are employed yet unable to afford the basics of housing, food, child care, health care, technology, and transportation (and whose income places them above the poverty threshold). While vital to keep our local economies thriving, ALICE workers still find they struggle to maintain financial stability for their own households. Learn more about ALICE in the video below.
Ravi and Ella heard from Angela Williams, President and CEO of United Way Worldwide, among other thought leaders and experts in the field about innovative partnerships, policies, and programs that are successfully uplifting ALICE individuals and families. In particular, Ella noted the session “Measuring What Matters: Building the Family Stability Matrix to Track Mobility and Impact” helped her gain new ideas she’d love to implement in the Greater Charlottesville. Sessions spanned focuses surrounding Community Impact, Marketing, Fundraising and Engagement, Policy, all related to ways nonprofits, corporations, foundations, and government entities can work together to support ALICE.
Ravi shared “We were so fortunate to get to attend the “United for ALICE” conference hosted by our United Way family in Northern New Jersey and learn from our United Way peers across the country. It is inspiring to hear how other organizations are working to transform their communities in the name of ALICE, and we hope to take some of this inspiration and insight back home to Charlottesville.”