To reach UWSC's bold goal, an additional 26 individuals should be able to obtain or remain in school or at their job annually thru 2025. Our goal is to determine whether our funding for financial stability is in fact translating into employment and/or postsecondary.

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 caused devastation to the employment landscape in Story County, with close to 8,000 individuals becoming unemployed from late February to July 2020 (source: Ames Chamber). Unfortunately, this was borne out in our programs as well, with a huge decline of individuals able to remain in school or at their job. Compounding this, many childcare centers had to close temporarily, leaving working parents suddenly without childcare. United Way partners worked tirelessly, however, to come up with solutions to safely reopen.

In FY20-21, with the pandemic still in full swing, we saw an improvement in this metric nonetheless. This was in large part due to our ability to include the Center for Creative Justice's data, along with data from programs offering childcare sliding fee scales and transitional living (housing). Center for Creative Justice, a nonprofit probation provider, added this performance measure to their United Way Scorecard in FY19-20. Interestingly, some of CCJ’s data, including this particular metric, is reported by the clients’ probation officers. With 2 years of reporting under their belt, we see this as a reliable source of data and have now included it here alongside that of 10 other funded programs or agencies. In FY20-21, 279 CCJ clients were able to obtain or retain their job or schooling. In FY19-20, that number was 174 – lower, but still commendable. We look forward to including CCJ’s data as we move forward.

The data reported here is an aggregate of data reported annually by the following funded programs: ACPC, Boys & Girls Club (Ames), ChildServe, The Bridge Home's Transitional Living Program, StoryTime Childcare, University Community Childcare, YSS FaDSS, and YSS Transitional Living Program. Data from Boys & Girls Club (Nevada), Center for Creative Justice, and The Bridge Home's Rapid Rehousing Project also is included here, effective FY20-21.