Community Resilience
Foothills United Way is driving results through collaborative action in Boulder and Broomfield counties with an emphasis on community resilience. Our goal is to address community challenges with innovative solutions that prevent problems from spiraling out of control and becoming more costly. We’re investing in collaborative solutions where expert organizations, local nonprofits, government organizations/agencies, faith communities and businesses link assets to make measurable progress.
We have played many leadership roles in staging fundraising and volunteer coordination efforts in response to recent regional disasters, namely the Four Mile Canyon Fire, the historic floods in 2013 and the Cold Springs Fire. In 2014, the Foothills Flood Relief Fund brought together nine additional fundraising partners and soon after transitioned to the Boulder County Long-Term Flood Recovery Group. Foothills United Way has helped over a 1,000 flood-impacted households and continues to serve as the lead partner in that collaboration.
Goals: Build a more resilient community by connecting strong resources with each other and developing a system that responds to community shocks and stressors effectively and efficiently.
Our Strategy: Taking a leadership role in facilitating community relationships and growing the capacity of partners to meet basic needs. Nonprofits, faith communities and public agencies are involved in non-stop work to serve vulnerable individuals and families. These are the very partners that we rely on to respond to community shocks and stressors.
We recognize a resilient community is…
- A community that works together and plans effective strategies to overcome community stressors
- A community whose members are physically and mentally well
- Residents that are engaged yet self-sufficient within their community.
To become a resilient community we must be able to withstand and recover from any form of community stressors. In order to recover, the community must be able to learn from past stressors to strengthen future actions and efforts. A healthy community that practices resilience can respond to and recover far more quickly than those who don’t.
Our Community Resilience Work:
- We are prepared to provide appropriate support for our community during crucial times
- We create networks that promote resilience in the most vulnerable communities in our region
- Our Community Resilience Fund distributes grants to partners able to address the needs of residents vulnerable to or living in crisis because of a deficiency in both resources and relationships. Recent literature draws the connection between community resilience and social infrastructure of resources and relationships. The connections between various organizations and people in the community and the assets they possess define the ability of that community to weather a storm, literally or figuratively. Non-profits, government agencies, school districts, local businesses and faith communities all have the ability to provide tools people need to move out of poverty, become and stay healthy, and be connected to a caring community.
Learn More About Our Community Resilience Grants
Learn More About Our Resilience Building Efforts
INNOVATION COLLABORATION PREVENTION
