United Way Campaign Kickoff August 28
The organization continues to focus on important Key Initiatives for the upcoming year.
MILWAUKEE 08/28/2025– On Thursday, August 28, 2025, United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County announced their 2025 annual Community Campaign goal of $56 million. The campaign kickoff event was held at the Baid Center in Milwaukee. The event highlighted the Key Initiatives that United Way is focused on for 2025-26.
United Way has four community leaders heading up the 2025 campaign, including Kurt Bechthold, Walbec Group; Steve Booth, Baird; Raquel Filmanowicz, VC 414; and Scott Lauber, We Energies.
“We are inviting our community to be part of creating real solutions to some of our area’s biggest challenges,” said Amy Lindner, president & CEO of United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County. “Every gift to United Way helps families stay safely in their homes, prepares people for starting stable careers, connects neighbors to technology, and gives teens the mental wellness support they deserve.”
For 2025-26, United Way will continue their focus on four Key Initiatives.
- Safe & Stable Homes: Ending Family Homelessness. Donations to this initiative help families stay safely in their homes by offering essential housing resources, legal aid assistance, flexible financial support, and school-based housing case management. United Way has set the following goal: End family homelessness in our entire four-county footprint by the end of 2025.
- Reducing Barriers to Employment & Advancement. Donations to this initiative helps individuals build a stable career by offering job training, education programs, transportation services, and support for justice-impacted individuals. United Way has set the following goal: 15,000 people will be ready to start stable careers having overcome key employment barriers by 2029.
- Techquity. Donations to this initiative help bridge the digital divide by connecting job seekers, students, and others to computers and digital skills to ensure everyone has the technology and digital literacy to succeed. United Way has set the following goal: We will provide 50,000 computers to people who need them by 2027.
- Teen Mental Wellness: Empowering Minds. Donations to this initiative supports building comprehensive school mental health systems in high schools including access to school-based and community-based teen mental health services. United Way has set the following goal: Empowering Minds schools will elevate the mental wellness of 21,000 high school students by 2030.
Beginning with the 2025 campaign, United Way is introducing Impact Based Funding.
“What we have discovered over the past several years is that our donors and the community are increasingly motivated by our collective impact or Key Initiative work,” said Lindner, “Our donors have told us they want their money to go directly to specific causes they are passionate about.
In 2026, United Way’s investments will be made to organizations that demonstrate they can advance the work and goals of their Key Initiatives. This will allow them to more effectively drive community-wide progress on important issues by allocating more funding and staff capacity to these initiatives.
“The work we do today will echo for generations,” said Lindner. “When we come together, we are choosing to create a strong community where opportunity is within reach for all. That is the legacy we can leave together.”
The community can support these initiatives, as well as other United Way-funded programs, by giving through a workplace giving campaign or by making a personal contribution. Learn more at www.UnitedWayGMWC.org.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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