Advocate

At United Way, we need champions who are passionate about ensuring that everyone has the opportunities to attain the building blocks for a good quality of life - education, income, health, and housing.

Anyone can champion a cause. You can make a difference with your voice. Get informed. Tell your friends. There are many ways you can help advance the common good. Advocacy starts with finding a cause that's important to you and then spreading the word about it and taking action in support of it. You can inspire others to get involved, too.

How can you LIVE UNITED today? You can invest in our work in Middlesex County. You can volunteer at a local nonprofit organization that needs your help.

And you can support United Way's public policy work by contacting your legislators about critical issues. Use the following links to learn more about the issues and take action:

• Support AmeriCorps. Programs like AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve drive America's service sector, providing thousands of volunteers to local United Way programs and services across the country. Our community service programs are now more important than ever. In the coming fiscal year, Congress may cut funding for AmeriCorps, many senior programs, and even Learn and Serve, a critical program that enables over one million students to serve their communities while building their academic and civic skills. Send a pre-drafted email or print a letter to your Legislator here.
• Support Volunteer Income Tax Assistance for Low and Moderate Income Americans. Under the Community Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program volunteers trained in tax preparation provide low- and moderate- income individuals and families with tax prep and filing assistance at no cost. The majority of taxpayers served by the program earn an annual household income of less than $40,000 and are members of traditionally hard-to-reach and underserved communities including people with disabilities, extremely low-income persons, and the elderly. Contact your Senator and ask them to support the VITA Act of 2011 (S. 816). Learn more about VITA and its importance.
• Preserve charitable giving incentives. Federal legislators currently threaten to place new limitations on charitable giving tax incentives. The plan, an effort to finance health reform, could decrease annual donations to nonprofits like United Way. Please take two minutes to write your representatives. Learn more about it here and sign up for action alerts.
• Support a national 2-1-1 hotline. Yes, we are fortunate that in Connecticut we already have 2-1-1 in place for information and referral. In fact, there ar 240 active call centers in 46 states. Yet many parts of the country still lack this valuable service or don't have an adequate telecommunications infrastructure in place. Click here to learn more and how to contact your legislators.
• Click here to sign up for numerous other action alerts and find out the issues up for debate.