View the full list of grants made by NobleCause
United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County is pleased to announce being named as the recipient of a $50,000 grant through NobleCause, a grant competition mobilizing volunteers to address the greatest challenges facing their communities.
Seven awards of $50,000 were available to organizations working to assemble partners to develop volunteer leaders to work toward multiplying the number of volunteers needed to address significant local issues.
These funds will support expansion of volunteer support for local middle school youth.
“Research tells us that if a student misses more than 10 percent of school, has two or more behavioral referrals or fails a core subjuct during their middle school years, their likelihood of graduation without successful intervention can drop to 25 percent,” said Laura Elliot, United Way’s Middle School Success director. “The grant from NobleCause will be a critical component in helping us recruit and develop a core group of caring adults to volunteer with local middle school students.”
NobleCause is made possible by an anonymous donor within the GiveWell Community Foundation and organized by NobleHour.com, a volunteer management tool that promotes a culture of civic engagement and charts meaningful, measureable acts of goodness. The competition awarded 107 organizations with $6,500 and seven organizations received $50,000 grants.
“We set out to encourage communities throughout the country to tell us their big, sustainable ideas to inspire quality volunteerism,” said Wesley Barnett, managing partner for TreeTop Commons and NobleHour. “By organizing local volunteers to address local concerns, NobleCause award recipients are defining social responsibility right in their own communities.”
Click here for more information regarding the Middle School Success initiative and how to get involved.
About United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County’s Middle School Success Initiative
United Way works with the Asheville Buncombe Middle Grades Network, an evolving group of organizations that includes Asheville City and Buncombe County Schools, local nonprofits, public institutions and individuals. Together they are establishing new ways to partner and respond to student, family and community needs and have identified three key strategies for their work: An Early Warning and Response System (EWRS), will be the first of its kind in North Carolina. It will identify in real time when a student is falling off track and alerts the appropriate school faculty and their community-based partners to take swift action. United Way’s volunteer center facilitates “Who Got You Through?”, a campaign that recruits capable, screened volunteers to serve as mentors, tutors and vital helpers. Students are most successful when they live in healthy families and engaged communities. To that end, United Way of ABC places Resource Coordinators on middle school campuses to mobilize neighboring resources, build networks of support and directly target root causes of economic and academic disparities.
About NobleHour
Since 2007, NobleHour has proven to be the volunteer management solution for organizations across the nation. With its robust online platform, Noblehour enhances community engagement with a variety of innovative and transformative tools for finding, tracking, and measuring volunteer, service‐learning, and community service initiatives.
With offices in Lakeland, FL, and Portland, OR, The NobleHour team is a dedicated group of pioneers, scientists, and artists with unbelievable talents and an astonishing willingness to think outside the norm to empower people to “do good” in their communities.
Visit www.noblehour.com to learn more.
