In the fall of 2008, the United Way of King County’s Community Building Committee approved a new structure that includes the implementation of the New Solutions Impact Council replacing the four sub region (North, South, East & Seattle) focused Community Councils.

At its inception, New Solutions recruited volunteer members that served on each of the sub regional community councils along with new volunteers to provide a diverse stream of geographic and community experience. This group will act as the front-line in facilitating new solutions with United Way King County impact councils and volunteers.

The New Solutions Council is made up of 15 volunteer members from various facets of the community to help identify strategies supported by United Way of King County resources to effectively create community-level change, develop responses to immediate needs and create long-term solutions in response to health and human services issues in King County.

New Solutions Impact Council began meeting in February, 2009.

Mission:
New Solutions is tasked with engaging community participants in identifying and implementing new strategies to improve local community conditions. With data from the United Way of King County Community Assessment, interaction with United Way of King County Impact Councils, Volunteer Center and Public Policy, as well as community level information from multiple stakeholders, New Solutions will work to ensure that United Way of King County is accountable and responsive to local resident/communities through understanding trends, emerging issues and opportunities for impact.

New Solutions will promote use of best and promising practices and allow for opportunities to test innovative approaches to working together to solve issues.

Products:
In addition to the community level research and projects, the New Solutions Council allocates small grants to a variety of non-profit agencies and community groups throughout King County each year. The purpose of the New Solutions Smalls Grants Fund at United Way of King County is to address regional needs through local investments deemed to be critical by United Way of King County’s New Solutions Council.

The Small Grants funding is to be used to maintain United Way of King County’s visibility through partnerships in responding to critical or emergent needs, developing essential services in under-served communities, and supporting community planning and community building efforts that lead to improving the lives of the residents of King County.

The New Solutions Small Grants Fund awards are typically time-limited awards for the purposes listed above. They are generally small grants of between $5,000 to $20,000 and agencies or groups will submit a year-end report to the Council about progress towards outcomes supported by the New Solutions Small Grants Funds.    To review our full impact plan and see what great programs we awarded small grants to, please visit our website at the following link:

 http://www.uwkc.org/nonprofit/impact/default.asp

Staying Connected:
The New Solutions Community Impact Council is always seeking information from the community year-round to help inform our work. To this end, we will embark upon many different types of communication with stakeholders, community members, etc. such as convening community information-share meetings, blogs, twitter updates (for those on our mailing list) and more!