How Community Investment Teams
Get Your Donations Where They Are Needed
At the heart of the United Way of Northern Arizona’s grant process is the Community Investment (CI) Fund, a volunteer-driven process that invests your donations into the proven programs, partnerships and initiatives that are changing lives in Coconino, Navajo and Apache counties every day.
There are currently 37 community volunteers participating in one of seven Community Investment Teams spread throughout northern Arizona.
This year, their review process is a little different.
Typically, UWNA disburses one-year grants to our partners, but in 2021, we chose to make two-year commitments to each of the the 42 programs supported through your donations, with an initial grant given last year and a “renewal” grant awarded this year.
That change gave our partners a little more stability and the opportunity to plan out beyond one year.
We continue to do our due diligence to ensure that your donations to UWNA are wisely spent. Each program recently provided a progress report and over the next few weeks, our CI Teams will be reviewing those documents to determine if the programs are meeting their goals and should get their renewal grant this year.
UWNA is continuing to recruit additional Community Investment Team members, particularly for Page and the northeast part of the state. If you are interested, you can find more information at Volunteer Hub.
Eric Scott, the Human Resource Manager for Navajo County who leads the Northeast Community Investment team, says the process “allows for a careful analysis of the applicants and a loving concern as the steward of these donations, to ensure the most responsible impact can be made for the organizations that are serving our community.”
Recommendations by the CI Teams are the first step of the approval process. CI Team leaders will meet with UWNA Board Member (and Coconino County Assessor) Armando Ruiz, who is the chair of the CI Team process this year. He in turn, will present their recommendations to the full Board of Directors in June with awards going out the following month.
The actual amount of the renewal grants will depend, however, on how much money UWNA is able to raise during the current annual campaign. If you would like to give to the Community Investment Fund and have your donation count towards this year’s renewal grants, please click HERE. Thank you!
