The United Way of Chittenden County Mission: Build a stronger Chittenden County by mobilizing our community to improve people’s lives. United Way is the only Chittenden County organization to take a bird’s-eye view of the human service needs of our community. If it requires fundraising, rallying volunteers, or just plain getting people to work together, that’s what we do. To make lasting change, our experience tells us that we should focus on the underlying causes of our most serious problems. So we bring together people from across our community – from government, business, faith groups, nonprofits, and ordinary citizens – to find solutions. Through strategic partnerships, and our investment in a network of high-performing social programs, we know that we can achieve results that no one entity could achieve alone. The collaborative process of making lasting change toward shared community goals is called "Community Impact." Funding decisions are based on a set of target outcomes which have been identified through a comprehensive community participation process in an effort to ensure that fewer people are affected by the identified problems and issues in the first place. The combination of the improving lives and getting at root causes is critical to making Community Impact work, and we are transforming into a Community Impact United Way with a strategic plan to make that happen.