About United Way of Greater Knoxville

History and Mission

Vision

Better Lives. Better Communities.

Our Mission

United Way of Greater Knoxville brings together resources to improve the lives of people in our community by helping them achieve their potential for self-sufficiency.

Evolution of United Way

Our earliest beginning locally in 1922 stems from a need to help people and, for many decades, United Way accomplished this by raising money from the community and allocating to member agencies that provide health and human service programs.

Today, United Way is working to bring people together to create lasting change that will improve lives in our community.

Lasting community change means improving lives by identifying the root cause of problems and then working to alleviate or prevent them by influencing community attitudes, networks, and organizations.Prevention and Development services improve lives by partnering with agencies whose programs provide direct services focused on preventing specific issues and includes direct services to individuals and families.

Basic Needs improve lives by partnering with programs and agencies to provide crisis and emergency services.

United Way of Greater Knoxville is studying and implementing our new community focus-community change. With your help, we will continue to preserve key existing community relationships while forging new partnerships to properly identify core issues, share responsibilities, and ensure lasting, effective change.