After months of careful evaluation, we’re announcing an important evolution for our local organization: we are changing our name to United Way for Greater Austin! Austin is an incredible city to live and work in and we’re proud to be here, so this name change reinforces our long-standing commitment to our dynamic community. We deliberately chose for—and not of—because we are here in service to Greater Austin.
The new name does not signal any change to our service area, we will continue to provide research-based and results-focused services to all ten counties where we work. We’ve been helping Central Texas for almost 90 years and are committed to creating a resilient, innovative, philanthropic, creative and thriving community for all.
The new name is one component of a larger rebranding process, where we are reintroducing ourselves to this vibrant community. At United Way, we are solving problems not just for one person with one need, but creating solutions for a large community with large needs. Our mission is to make Austin greater by building philanthropists, helping the working poor overcome barriers and making sure Austin continues to thrive.
With this change, we have a new Facebook page that we urge you to like to see updates on UWATX. You can also follow @uwatx on Twitter for even more posts on how we’re helping Austin continue to thrive. (Note: While our Twitter handle has also changed, if you were following @unitedwaycapitalarea, you are automatically following the new handle.)
As always, we couldn’t do this work without the support of an amazing network of community partners. We’ve worked to transform our space to reflect the new brand and have some great people to thank for making it happen:
Building:
The most visible of our changes is a makeover for our building: to align the space with our new brand, we’ve repainted and added new furnishings. None of this would have been possible without very generous donations:
- Joe Cisper brought his team in from JE Dunn Construction to oversee the project. Pinpoint Strategies brought an entire crew in and repainted areas of our building. They also introduced us to Sherwin Williams who donated all the paint.
- Berg Electric rewired the lobby and is hanging new light fixtures donated from their suppliers.
- Dell donated not only a state-of-the-art Samsung display monitor and software, but also a specialist to install it and train our staff on how to use it. Now we’ll have one more way to share our work with the community.
Mural:
In the spirit of partnership, John Rockwell, the designer behind our new look, created a mural to exemplify what United Way means to him. Our creative agency also used one of their two annual volunteer days to paint it on our building, and UWATX friend Paige Thurgood pitched in too. Thanks Creative Suitcase and Paige!
See photos in front of the You’re My Butter Half mural.