United Way for Greater Austin and Children’s Optimal Health (COH) have joined forces and merged!
Through this merger, we are streamlining our business and operational infrastructure to more efficiently serve the Greater Austin community. This will allow us to focus more on research and evaluation, and ultimately increase our impact as a data-driven organization.
Both organizations share a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the necessary restructuring of power to ensure that the voices of those with lived experience guide our work.
Together, we can do more.
This merger will support Model Community, a structured collaborative building a more effective, person-centered system of health, education, and social services. The goal of Model Community is that everyone in our community has the opportunity to be healthy and thrive, organizations can more effectively serve clients, and the community achieves equitable health and wellness outcomes.
COH team members will be supporting the development of a cross-sector community information exchange (CIE), a crucial part of Model Community, allowing our community to shift to more proactive, holistic, and person-centered care.
COH Board member Dr. Anjum Khurshid, formerly with Dell Medical School and currently with Harvard Medical School, has joined the United Way Board.
The COH Board included local leaders across our health, education, and social services sectors. These partners will continue to provide guidance to United Way as the CIE Community Advisory Board.
Since the onset of COVID-19, COH has been creating monthly community needs reports and maps with data from 2-1-1, a program run by United Way. We plan to integrate this work into Model Community.
David C. Smith, CEO of United Way for Greater Austin, will serve as CEO of the newly merged organization. The expanded organization will be named United Way for Greater Austin, with a mission to “bring people, ideas, and resources together to fight poverty in our community.”
Our two organizations officially merged on July 1, 2022. Since early 2021, United Way for Greater Austin and Children’s Optimal Health have been thoughtfully integrating the two organizations into one.