Mile High United Way
Who We Are
Mile High United Way is more than an organization—we are a catalyst for social change. We live at the intersection of the private, public, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors.
Our focus is on early childhood development and early literacy, education and youth development, and family income and economic stability. These are the fundamental building blocks for a good quality of life.
We know that our community’s challenges are bigger than any one organization can solve alone. By partnering with hundreds of local nonprofits, government agencies, policy-makers and businesses, we collectively solve community-wide problems.
What We Do
We change lives and transform communities through three interconnected initiatives:
Our School Readiness Initiative provides thousands of children from low-income families access to high-quality early childhood education so they enter school ready to learn and read at grade level by the end of the third grade.
Our Youth Success Initiative provides thousands of school-age, low-income and at-risk students access to mentoring, quality afterschool programs, tutoring and dropout prevention, and post-secondary programs to ensure that they succeed academically, graduate from high school and are ready for college or work.
Our Adult Self-Sufficiency Initiative supports and creates programs that help low-income people increase financial skills, develop workforce experience and move toward economic self-sufficiency.
We value our community partners, donors, volunteers and supporters who are a vital part of our success in building change through their efforts to Give, Advocate, and Volunteer.
That is what it means to LIVE UNITED.
Where We Work
We serve the Metro Denver community across five counties: Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson.
Our Vision
A community united to create better opportunities for all.
Our Mission
Uniting people, ideas, and resources to advance the common good.
History
Mile High United Way is proud to be the first United Way in the country. A group of visionaries including a Denver woman, a priest, two ministers and a rabbi, all who believed there must be a better way to meet the needs of local people, founded the United Way in Denver on October 16, 1887.
The Charity Organization Society, as it was known in the beginning, was the first association set up to meet community needs by funding many charities while significantly reducing the number of appeals.
Since then, whether it has been known as the “Community Chest,” “Red Feather Drive,” “United Fund,” and since 1964, “United Way,” groups of committed individuals have come together for more than a century to LIVE UNITED and advance the common good by providing the building blocks for a good quality of life for all.
Today, Mile High United Way is a catalyst for social change. We all LIVE UNITED to create a stronger and more vital community through innovative and effective programs and services in the focus areas of School Readiness, Youth Success and Adult Self-Sufficiency.
We partner with hundreds of local nonprofits, government agencies, policy-makers and businesses to advance the common good by changing lives and strengthening our community.