United Way of Southeast Louisiana Builds a Data-Driven Pathway to Prosperity with SureImpact
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
United Way of Southeast Louisiana established a Bold Goal to place 100,000 individuals living below the ALICE Threshold on a pathway to prosperity by 2035. The ALICE Threshold reflects the income required to afford basic needs. To support this work, the organization selected SureImpact to strengthen shared measurement, centralize impact data, align outcomes across partners, and enable more timely insights into progress across its regional network.
For more than 100 years, United Way has served Southeast Louisiana as a funder, convener, program operator, advocate, and emergency responder, bringing partners and resources together to address poverty across the region. Through programs and partnerships across Healthy Community, Youth Opportunity, Financial Security, and Community Resilience, United Way addresses urgent needs while advancing long-term economic mobility. The organization uses its Blueprint for Prosperity – a community-informed, data-driven framework that identifies the conditions individuals and families need to thrive – to guide the organization’s programs, partnerships, investments, and advocacy.
The Challenge
As United Way expanded its internal programs, partnerships, advocacy efforts, and collaborations, it needed a shared measurement system capable of supporting a more coordinated approach. Existing reporting processes had been developed for individual programs and funding relationships rather than a connected ecosystem working toward common outcomes.
Key challenges included:
Program and partner data maintained across several systems, limiting the ability to produce a unified regional view.
Programs and partners used measures tailored to their individual work, creating a need for shared indicators across the broader network.
A growing need to align internal programs, funded partners, collaboratives, and advocacy efforts around common outcomes.
Reporting timelines that limited access to timely outcome data for communications, fundraising, learning, and decision-making.
As Melisse Meza, Vice President of Community Impact – Health & Fund Distribution, explained:
“As our work and partnerships grew, we needed a more timely and connected view of our impact. A shared system will help our teams and partners learn from current data, communicate progress more clearly, and make better decisions as we work toward our Bold Goal.”
United Way’s existing reporting processes provided important program-level information but were not designed to support shared, timely measurement across a growing regional ecosystem.
The Solution
The organization recognized that achieving its Bold Goal required more than data collection. It required a shared system capable of bringing together internal programs, funded partners, public policy initiatives, case management activities, and community collaboratives.
With SureImpact, United Way can:
Centralize participant and program data in a single platform.
Measure shared outcomes consistently across organizations.
Monitor network-wide impact through real-time dashboards.
Identify emerging needs and service gaps more quickly.
Track participant progress along a Pathway to Prosperity.
Support a collective impact model built around shared goals, accountability, and continuous learning.
Deliver timely insights to leadership, fundraisers, marketers, and community stakeholders.
By implementing SureImpact, United Way is laying the groundwork for a long-term measurement strategy designed to track, learn from, and communicate both program-level outcomes and communitywide progress toward the Bold Goal.
As implementation expands, SureImpact will give United Way and its partner organizations access to timely dashboards that provide a clearer view of progress across the network. Leaders will be better positioned to identify emerging needs, monitor progress toward shared outcomes, and adapt strategies based on current information. This will support a more responsive and coordinated approach to community impact.
After experiencing its value firsthand through the Siemer Family Stability Program, United Way recognized SureImpact as a valuable tool for supporting shared measurement, coordinated learning, and accountability as it advances the Blueprint for Prosperity and Bold Goal.
Progress and Goals
United Way of Southeast Louisiana has already:
Established a Bold Goal to place 100,000 individuals living below the ALICE Threshold on a pathway to prosperity by 2035.
Developed a framework that aligns internal programs, funded partners, policymakers, and collaboratives around shared outcomes across four impact areas and multiple pathways to prosperity.
Created a model for quarterly collaborative learning sessions focused on shared measurement, problem-solving, and continuous improvement.
Expected Impact
While implementation is in its early stages, SureImpact is already positioned to help United Way of Southeast Louisiana transform how it measures, manages, and communicates impact. As implementation advances, SureImpact will:
Create a shared, more consistent view of impact data.
Provide visibility into both agency-level and network-wide outcomes.
Equip staff and participating partners with more timely performance insights.
Improve accountability and reporting for funders and stakeholders.
Give fundraising and marketing teams access to current impact data.
Strengthen collaboration among service providers, policymakers, funders, and community leaders.
Mary Ambrose, Chief Equity & Impact Officer, Community Impact, summarized the value of the platform: “Our Bold Goal requires a strong foundation for shared measurement and learning. SureImpact will help bring information from participating programs and partners into a more connected view, allowing us to track progress, identify gaps, work collaboratively, and make better decisions as we work to place 100,000 individuals living below the ALICE Threshold on a pathway to prosperity by 2035.”
By connecting data across participating programs and partners, SureImpact will give United Way a more timely view of progress across its ecosystem. This will complement existing program reporting with shared insights that help partners identify emerging trends, respond to community needs, and strengthen coordinated action toward the Bold Goal, creating a Southeast Louisiana where everyone can thrive.
