The new investment strategies are based on the Core Services Planning Project, a three-year body of research that identifies our community's health and human service needs. This project was undertaken with the support of the Board of Cuyahoga County Commissioners, the Mt. Sinai Healthcare Foundation and St. Luke's Foundation. The results are an in-depth analysis of 80 core community services and 21 health and human service consumer groups.

The core service and consumer reports provided the basis for United Way volunteers to determine which core services for which consumer groups at which stage of intervention would result in the most strategic approach to funding.

The new investment strategy looks holistically at service alignment for consumers of services. It takes into consideration other public and private funding, and seeks to complement, rather than duplicate, what is being financed by others.

The next step is to determine providers for the identified services through an RFP process that will determine United Way investments for fiscal year 2009 (June 30, 2008 through July 1, 2009).

The goals of changing investment strategies are to:

• Make more efficient use of available resources (both volunteer time and contributions)
• Ultimately improve the lives of Greater Clevelanders by providing a more efficient and effective "safety net" of services
• Provide a context for addressing emerging community issues
• Establish expectations for measurable outcomes
• Increase opportunities for collaborations and partnerships with the public and private sectors