UNITED WAY OF THE BLUEGRASS INC
651 Perimeter Drive Suite 510, Lexington, KY 40517 www.uwbg.org

---

Organizations Filed Purposes: UWBG LOOKS AT THE BIG PICTURE AND CONVENES THE PEOPLE, RESOURCES AND PARTNERSHIPS NEEDED TO FIND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO HELP MORE CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SUCCEED. LAST YEAR OVER 240,000 PEOPLE WERE SERVED BY A UWBG LED OR FUNDED PROGRAM; 6,624 CHILDREN WERE SERVED THROUGH EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAMS, 4,116 PEOPLE OBTAINED FINANCIAL EDUCATION AND ASSISTANCE, AND NEARLY 15,000 PEOPLE RECEIVED HELP THROUGH OUR 211 CONTACT CENTER. UWBG FIGHTS FOR A BETTER BLUEGRASS.

UNITED WAY OF THE BLUEGRASS (UWBG) FIGHTS FOR THE BASIC NEEDS, EDUCATION AND FINANCIAL STABILITY OF EVERY PERSON IN CENTRAL Kentucky.

Supporting Community Programs: UWBG helps create opportunities for a better life for all. We make strategic investments in programs serving low-income and underserved Central Kentuckians in the areas of Education, Financial stability, and Basic Needs. We also serve as an incubator for new programs, and a convener of partnerships of agencies seeking to improve lives by working together. UWBG serves nine Central Kentucky communities including: Anderson, Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Jessamine, Madison, Montgomery, Scott and Woodford Counties. UWBG is a leader and motivator of change for long-term solutions for Central Kentucky communities. We invest donor dollars into programs that are making a difference and supporting low-income and underserved families and children. We have developed systems to evaluate the quality and success of the programs and partners that our investors help fund, so that they can be assured that their dollars will have maximum impact on their community. We believe that our communities can only affect long-term positive change by working together and living united. We are proud to serve as a vehicle through which members of our community can join together and make a powerful impact on the education, financial stability, and basic needs of our community.

United Way of the Bluegrass 2-1-1 connects people with resources that are available in their community via phone, chat, text messaging, mobile apps and the 2-1-1 website. 2-1-1 helps thousands of people in Central Kentucky each year. In addition to the work 2-1-1 is doing in Central Kentucky, the contact center has contracts that have expanded the reach of the UWBG 2-1-1 program. In partnership with the Department of Aging and Independent Living, UWBG 2-1-1 created a resource database for 69 counties in Kentucky that did not have 2-1-1 coverage as of July 1, 2017. In addition we have formed partnerships with United Way of the Capital Area (MS), United Way of Northeast Kentucky, United Way of the Ohio Valley and United Way of Henderson County which allows our Central Kentucky regional contact center to answer 2-1-1 calls for each of those service areas. Additionally, 2-1-1 has a contract with the Federal CDC to participate in the Flu on Call program.

The Central Kentucky Economic Empowerment Program (CKEEP) is a coalition, led by United Way of the Bluegrass that partners with the IRS to provide free tax preparation to low-income families, raise awareness about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and help families build assets in the Lexington region. CKEEP is a coalition member of the Kentucky Asset Success Initiative (KASI) which is the overarching Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) initiative for 80 counties in the state of Kentucky. United Way of the Bluegrass serves as the VITA grant recipient and fiscal agent for KASI and its five regional coalitions. Thanks to the work of hundreds of volunteer tax preparers with our VITA program, families are able to save their much-needed money while strengthening our overall economy. Each year, millions of dollars are lost by hard-working families in the Bluegrass who do not file for their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) during tax time. The IRS estimates that approximately 20 to 25 percent of those eligible for the credit do not claim it because they don't know they are eligible for it, they don't know how to claim it, or they don't know where to go for assistance. Our goal is to make eligible households aware of the credit and help them claim it without having to pay for tax preparation and filing services. The free tax preparation provided by CKEEP and its volunteer tax preparers offers immediate savings to Central Kentuckians. This past tax season, our CKEEP volunteers alone dedicated over 5,500 hours of return preparation that resulted in $4.5 million in tax refunds with $1.6 million of that being the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit. Across all of our VITA sites, almost 3,200 returns were prepared.

---

---

Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202111049349300601_public.xml