Racial Equity Resources

United Way of Pennsylvania works to represent our communities fully. We recognize the historic racial inequity that Black communities continue to face and we pledge to support and do our part in dismantling such inequities. We have compiled these antiracist resources for our supporters to learn from, amplify, and educate with.

UWP is United Against Racism

In Pennsylvania communities, racism and inequity is present in different forms – from overt, hate- group-related activity to subtler policy decisions that create multi-generational inequity, which plays out today in measure-able financial hardship for many families.

We mourn the loss of black lives who have been cut short by racism and injustice in Pennsylvania and across the country, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Dominique Fells, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Eric Gardner and Antwon Rose Jr., countless others.

We also acknowledge that since settlers arrived in America, indigenous people have experienced dislocation, genocide, and various forms of abuse while struggling to preserve their culture. Throughout American history, other people of color including Hispanic, Latino/Latina/Latinx, and Asian communities have also experienced racism and discrimination perpetuated by systems.

An individual’s identity has many components, and oppressions are interlinked. In addition to being antiracist, we want to challenge practices based in sexism, age-ism, differences in ability, differences in religion, languages spoken and other historical, systemic and current forms of discrimination to create more inclusive communities. While diversity varies by community, in all Pennsylvania communities people are marginalized and discriminated against based on identity or ability. United Way of Pennsylvania as an organization recognizes that we too are learning and growing. As we pursue equity and inclusion in our work, we will continue to pursue avenues to examine what equity means to the people we serve and who we are. United Way’s unique contribution to race equity work is our track record of working across sectors and driving toward systemic change through impact, collaboration, and results. To do this, we will engage the voices of Pennsylvanians who are people of color, Pennsylvanians who identify as LGBTQIA+, Pennsylvanians who have a disability, and Pennsylvanians who are disproportionately at-risk of falling into poverty even while working and earning a paycheck.

Organizationally, we will:

• Value and embrace differences in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, gender, gender identity, disability, nationality, age, sexual orientation, and viewpoints as a critical component to our success in serving the needs of our state.
• Strive for greater diversity within our board and staff, and in our business relationships as consumers of a variety of services, to reflect the state we live in, and work to ensure that we have a wide-range of voices and viewpoints represented.
• Advocate and educate, utilizing data to understand the health of our communities, and advocate the facts; Black, Hispanic, Latino/Latina/Latinx, and first-generation immigrant families face lower wages and higher unemployment. To strive for racial equity, we must acknowledge these shortfalls and advocate for policies and programs that break down the disproportionate lack of access diverse communities have to services and opportunity.
• Cultivate and strengthen relationships by inviting a broad representation of multi-sector partners to help guide United Way of Pennsylvania’s statewide DEI Committee to assure DEI is embedded in all functions of the organization.
• Support local United Ways, each who are at various stages of measuring need, implementing impact strategies and evaluating outcomes with an emphasis to help reduce inequities related to race and ethnicity in their communities.
• Continue to provide equitable opportunity in employment decisions including recruiting, hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits, and training, without regard to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, gender, disability, nationality, age, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected class. Remove the possibility for bias in our hiring processes wherever possible.
• Treat one another with dignity and respect in all activities. Our employees, volunteers and partners come to United Way of Pennsylvania with diverse life experiences, and we will welcome and embrace this to create a culture of inclusion.
• Provide ongoing training so that both staff and board leadership can advance these commitments.