Our Goal
To help individuals and families move toward financial stability by helping them increase their income, build savings, and gain/sustain assets.
United Way of Greater Toledo’s recently launched Agenda for Change focuses on education, income, and health. Specifically, the area of income focuses on helping families become financially stable through financial education, asset development, and credit repair/debt reduction. United Way identified several organizations in the community already doing this work and brought them together to create the Financial Stability Collaborative.
The Collaborative brings the fragmented resources and educational opportunities together to avoid duplication of services and create a solid process for financial education.
It is important to understand this work addresses multiple faces of poverty.
The Collaborative has identified three populations:
- Transitional: This population has housing stabilization barriers. External factors may include substance abuse, domestic violence, and multiple encounters with the court system.
- Situational: Most in this category have recently encountered job loss and are unfamiliar with available resources. This population often has a very real sense of denial about their situation. Coping mechanisms include substance abuse and domestic violence.
- Generational: This population has been in poverty for generations, and has been taught how to navigate the system and access resources. The growing challenge has become the enormous amount of competition (from situational poverty) for these resources.
Information & Referral: Five partners in the Collaborative provide information & referral services. These neighborhood centers are able to provide advocacy on-site as families and individuals engage in wraparound services that will move them toward financial stability.
Education: We will identify other community partners with expertise in various fields to help create and convene financial education opportunities in neighborhoods across Toledo.
“Customers” will choose or be referred to these learning opportunities according to their financial needs. Collectively, these learning opportunities will be referred to as the Learning Academy. Three partners are currently engaged in this work.
Key partners in this Collaborative include Aurora Project, Catholic Charities, East Toledo Family Center, Friendly Center, Greater Toledo Urban League, Lutheran Social Services, Providence Center, and United Way of Greater Toledo.
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