United Way of the Franklin & Hampshire Region
Mission
UWFH’s mission is to work in partnership with our community to identify and address our region's most pressing issues. We inspire and engage individuals and organizations to invest together in overcoming those challenges.
Vision
Our vision is that all individuals and families have equitable access to the tools and resources to support their basic needs and ensure future successes. In doing so, we build a strong, vibrant, and inclusive community.
Values
Equity: We understand and acknowledge that we live in a world with systemic racism, economic disparities, and other forms of intersectional disadvantages. We are committed to addressing those inequities at the organizational and individual level
Human Dignity: We treat all people respectfully and operate in ways that celebrate everyone’s humanity.
Collaboration: We work collaboratively with each other, our partners, and our communities to make the most of our combined resources
Accountability: We hold ourselves accountable to high ethical, administrative, programmatic, and fiscal standards
Curiosity & Learning: We strive to ask questions rather than make judgements. We are committed to learning from our successes and our mistakes.
Who We Are
UWFH is an independent local nonprofit organization serving Hampshire and Franklin Counties. We are governed by an independent board, of no less than 18 individuals, who represent key stakeholders across both counties including representatives from local businesses, community banks, government, healthcare, the nonprofit sector, and colleges and universities. As part of UWFH’s commitment to accountability and collaboration we have 7 standing committees who oversee the organization: Executive, Governance, Finance, Audit, Community Investment, Campaign and JEDIB (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging). UWFH has very low staffing costs and the day-to-day operations are run by a small but mighty team of 6 full-time employees.
Our mission is to work in partnership with our community to identify and address our region's most pressing issues. We inspire and engage individuals and organizations to invest together in overcoming those challenges.
A United Way That Has Changed
Many people think of United Way as a passthrough fundraising organization, collecting workplace giving and distributing it broadly across dozens of agencies. That was true for much of our history. It is not who we are today.
Over the past several years, UWFH has made a deliberate strategic shift toward a more focused, community-led model. That evolution has four defining characteristics:
From broad distribution to focused impact areas
We no longer spread funding thinly across every need. We now concentrate investment in priority areas identified through local needs assessments, community conversations, partner feedback, and local data. For 2025-2026, our primary focus areas are food security, youth mental health and wellbeing, and healthy communities.
From transactional grants to Aligned Impact
Our Aligned Impact strategy brings multiple agencies together around shared goals, incentivizing collaboration rather than competition. Rather than funding isolated programs, we invest in networks of organizations working in concert.
From a clearinghouse to a convener
In 2023, we conducted a community survey of nearly 160 partners, donors, and stakeholders to ask directly: where is UWFH best positioned to do transformational work? Overwhelmingly, the answer was as a collaborative partner and convener, breaking down silos, connecting businesses and nonprofits, and adding momentum to aligned regional change. That is the role we have built toward.
From grant maker to direct service provider
UWFH now operates several programs of its own, including our diaper bank, digital navigation services, and early childhood work. These programs fill gaps that no single partner agency was positioned to address on its own. They also reflect something broader: a shift from an organization that funds change to one that actively participates in it.
Our 2025-2026 Aligned Impact Priorities
Food Security
Access to healthy food is a precondition for everything else, including education, health, and economic mobility. Federal funding cuts to SNAP are threatening the safety net that hundreds of families in our region rely on. In response, UWFH has been an active participant in the Governor's Anti-Hunger Task Force, helping to coordinate the regional response to these cuts and ensure that our community partners have the resources and connections they need. We have also launched direct fundraising to help fill the gap left by reduced SNAP benefits, working alongside our food security partners to keep food moving to the families who need it most.
Our food security investments support a regional network of agencies including community meal programs, food pantries, and farm-based food access initiatives spanning both counties.
Youth Wellbeing & Mental Health
Local data shows a consistent increase in teens experiencing sadness, depression, and anxiety. Over 40% of local teens surveyed in 2023 reported feelings of depression, and the pandemic made this significantly worse. The former U.S. Surgeon General declared youth mental health a national crisis, and suicide rates among youth ages 10 to 24 have increased by 57% since 2007.
Our Aligned Impact strategy in this area funds a coordinated network of programs focused on three things: building belonging, providing clinical support, and empowering youth voice. We support organizations offering trauma-informed wellness and mentoring, expanded therapy services for underserved rural populations, mobile clinical care that meets young people where they are, and arts and nature-based recovery programs. Together, these programs form a regional safety net for our youth.
Our Programs
In addition to community investment grantmaking, UWFH operates several direct programs addressing critical gaps in the region.
UWFH Diaper Bank
We distribute over 20,000 free diapers each month to families across Franklin and Hampshire Counties. Diapers are a basic need not covered by SNAP or WIC, leaving many low-income families to choose between diapers and other essentials. By relieving this financial pressure, we help parents redirect their resources toward their children’s development and family stability. The diaper bank operates through a network of community distribution sites across both counties.
Read! Learn! Succeed! Literacy Initiative
Our literacy program gets books directly into the hands of children, building early literacy skills and fostering a love of reading from an early age. Early literacy is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic success, and this work sets children up for a lifetime of learning.
Digital Navigation Services
Digital access is the “super social determinant of health”. Our Digital Navigator program provides one-on-one support to community members as well community based organizations like nonprofits and councils on aging. We also administer a Mobile Hotspot Lending Program, providing free devices with unlimited data for up to a year, and offer digital literacy workshops in partnership with local libraries and community organizations. This program is made possible in part through our partnership with the Alliance for Digital Equity and the Massachusetts Broadband Institute.
Emergency Response
United Response Fund
Established in 2025 by the 13 United Ways of Massachusetts, the United Response Fund allows UWFH to mobilize rapidly during community crises, providing immediate support to neighbors and frontline organizations when emergencies arise. It reflects our role as a convener that can act at a scale greater than any single organization. The fund was activated in response to ongoing federal funding cuts threatening critical services across both counties.
In November of 2025 we leveraged this fund to support residents of Franklin and Hampshire Counties affected by the gap in SNAP funding caused by the extended government shutdown. Statewide we were able to raise over 7 million dollars to support our neighbors in need, with $150,000 of that coming from our local community.
Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund
When severe flooding devastated farms across Western and Central Massachusetts, the United Ways of Massachusetts came together to launch the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund in partnership with the Healey-Driscoll Administration. UWFH supported the fundraising effort alongside our United Way partners statewide, helping to raise and distribute relief directly to farmers across the region. The fund brought together government, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector to deliver immediate recovery support while also addressing longer-term farm resiliency and food security. It is another example of how United Way can mobilize quickly and at scale when our communities need it most.
How We're Funded
Our funding comes primarily from a combination of workplace giving, both via employees of local businesses and corporate support, and gifts from individuals in our community. We do receive some foundation support and funding from the state for our diaper program. We also act as the local administrator for the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which directs funding from FEMA to local nonprofit shelters, pantries and feeding programs.
Giving through UWFH allows donors to take a holistic approach to addressing the needs of our community by letting them invest a single gift into multiple programs working on different parts of the same problem. This increases the probability of real change. We use a volunteer-led process called community investment to evaluate the greatest needs of our region. We then invest in the best strategies and solutions to meet those needs.