Vision, Mission and History

United Way of Tarrant County dates back to 1922, when a group of Fort Worth community leaders gathered to consolidate the fundraising efforts of several local charities. Instead of competing for volunteer time and funding, they pooled their resources to create the Fort Worth Community Chest  – the first Community Chest in the Southwest and forerunner of United Way of Tarrant County.

In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, we funded unemployment relief and lunches for disadvantaged schoolchildren, and in World War II, distributed government flour and raised War Chest funds.

In the 1950’s, we consolidated, folding into the Tarrant County United Fund. We started researching community needs more intensely and developing new programs to meet those needs.

In 1962, joined with our planning body, the Community Council, to form the United Fund and Community Services, Inc.

We officially became United Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County in 1973, to promote a common identity with similar organizations across the country.

We continued to grow, establishing United Way—Arlington in 1981, and United Way—Northeast, in 1986.

In 2005, United Way of Tarrant County turned its focus to three main efforts to build a stronger community through Education, Income and Health, which are the building blocks for a good, quality life.

United Way of Tarrant County launched our Impact work in 2010, where funding was directed to three issue areas of Education, Income and Health with the goal of seeing changes in populations to reach three bold: LEARN WELL, EARN WELL and LIVE WELL.

In 2017, United Way of Tarrant County conducted a strategic review of the organization to determine the next chapter for United Way of Tarrant County.  That summer we conducted 12 Strategy Workshops and engaged more than 70 community stakeholders to ensure communitywide input was taken into consideration.

The United Way of Tarrant County launched its new strategic plan in early 2018, which introduced a new model to allocate funds to community partners and agencies – Systems Change.  The Systems Change model shifts a portion of funding to focus on the root causes of social issues and finding universal solutions for problems that impact entire populations and continue to occur.  Also, in the summer of 2018, we allocated almost $1 million in Systems Change funding to six organizations.

In February 2019, United Way of Tarrant County released the results of its Community Assessment, which identified the top social issues affecting the lives of Tarrant County residents: housing and homelessness; health, mental health and wellness; transportation; education, early childhood and youth; and basic needs, emergency assistance and financial stability.