You can give online—make a one-time gift or become a monthly donor. Your donation will help so many people in Halton and Hamilton, every single day!

You can give by selecting United Way Halton & Hamilton through your workplace fundraising campaign. For more information contact info@uwhh.ca.

You can also give through a gift of securities, or leave a planned giving gift as a part of your overall financial and/or estate planning.

Call us and leave a message at 905-635-3138 if you’d like to give over the phone. One of our United Way Halton & Hamilton staff members will give you a call.

Cheques can be made out and mailed to:
United Way Halton & Hamilton
101 – 4210 South Service Road, Burlington, ON L7L 4X5

Yes. Your donation is invested in a network of local nonprofit agencies helping our community when they need it most. Our agencies support thousands of people in need each year—that means every minute of every day, someone you may know is helped by your donation to United Way Halton & Hamilton.

United Way Halton & Hamilton is the best way to care for your whole community. How?

Reach. With a single donation to United Way Halton & Hamilton, you’re supporting 61+ agency partners and 117+ programs delivering hundreds of services that help thousands of Halton & Hamilton families and individuals every day.

Stability. Besides the government, United Way is the only organization that gives stable, multi-year funding to social service agencies. That lets them plan ahead and focus less on fundraising and more on finding long-term solutions to Halton and Hamilton’s most challenging social issues.

Value. Your gift to United Way Halton & Hamilton’s annual campaign is invested directly to support a network of programs that address the community’s most critical issues.

Volunteer oversight. Hundreds of people in Halton & Hamilton volunteer with United Way Halton & Hamilton, guiding everything from fundraising to how we invest your donations.

Together, we tackle tough challenges in Halton and Hamilton. How do we do it? By creating stability through fundraising for the community, researching to better understand the most challenging issues, relying on the skills and insights of volunteers, and by funding and partnering with the most effective local organizations that create real opportunities, and measuring the results.

We focus on improvements in poverty to possibility, helping children and youth be all that kids can be, and supporting healthy people and strong communities. That might mean causes that work to end poverty and homelessness, money management skills for people who don’t have much money to work with, healthy snacks and a safe environment to make sure kids are making it to school, helping seniors overcome isolation or local family resource centres where stressed parents can find help right in their neighbourhoods.

At United Way Halton & Hamilton, we understand the importance of choice when it comes to charitable giving. While giving directly to a specific charity is commendable, it’s essential to recognize that no single agency alone can solve the complex social service issues facing our community. It truly takes a network of support, collaboration, and strategic investment to create meaningful, lasting change.

By donating to United Way Halton & Hamilton, you’re not only supporting a single agency but contributing to a network of support that addresses multiple interconnected issues. We work with a diverse network of partner agencies, each specializing in different areas of need. Through strategic investments in these agencies and programs, we help maximize the impact of your donation and address the root causes of social challenges.

We take great care in vetting and selecting our partner agencies to ensure that your donor dollars are being allocated effectively and responsibly. Our rigorous vetting process evaluates the stability, effectiveness, and financial accountability of each agency to ensure that they have the necessary infrastructure and capacity to deliver impactful services to those in need. This ensures that your donation is directed to agencies with strong foundations and the ability to make a meaningful difference in our community.

From strategy to governance, fundraising to investing donations: United Way Halton & Hamilton is led by volunteers.

Among our hundreds of volunteers, we have a volunteer Board of Directors that guides our decisions; fundraising volunteers who allow us to raise millions of dollars cost effectively every year; finance volunteers who audit our spending and approve our budgets; community impact volunteers who steward and invest the millions raised; and with the agencies to make sure your donation is making the biggest difference possible.

With all that community input, you can trust United Way Halton & Hamilton is working hard to make our community stronger every day!

We love and appreciate all of our volunteers. We know that when employees and donors go out in the community to see, hear and feel the work we do, it can make huge impact on their perspective and their giving.

We have developed engagements and volunteering opportunities; that can be completed virtually or in person. Our campaign toolkit, available on our website, contains many engagement and volunteer opportunities, such as, panel discussions, Seeing is Believing Tours, Impact Story videos, kit packing suggestions and more. We are also offering enhanced training sessions for Employee Campaign Chairs in workplaces to help them learn some best practices for running a campaign in a virtual, in-person, or hybrid workplace.

In addition, United Way hosts Show Your Local Love Day each Spring, where community comes together to participate in volunteer projects in support of local United Way-supported agencies. We also host a Holiday Helping Hand program each December that includes several volunteering and gift drive programs to share with community during the holiday season.

When you give to United Way Halton & Hamilton, you’re giving to an annual campaign that includes gifts made through individual and corporate donations, workplace campaigns and monthly giving.

Every year United Way Halton & Hamilton sets an ambitious fundraising goal, where all the donations we receive are pooled together. Every donation made to the fundraising campaign goes right into our local Halton & Hamilton community to help deliver critical programs through our agency partners.

Giving together helps your donation go further. We provide multiyear funding to our agency partners, so they can plan ahead and focus on delivering the programs and services our community needs.

This smooths the ups and downs of annual giving decisions made by individuals and corporations, providing stability to the network of programs and services.

At United Way Halton & Hamilton, we work closely with our supported agency partners to drive community impact. In addition to these collaborations, we’re proud to facilitate several impactful, community wide initiatives directly.

Our Community Donation Warehouse fosters relationships with corporate and logistics partners, offering a community-based solution to repurpose unused inventory, further supporting agencies and amplifying our impact. Learn more about this program here.

We also operate ConnectED, a program designed to empower non-profit staff with the knowledge and skills needed to make a meaningful community impact. In partnership with subject matter experts, we provide quality, relevant, and affordable capacity-building opportunities to strengthen the sector. Explore more about ConnectED here.

Our Labour Community Advocacy Program is designed to give union members tools to understand what supports are available in their community and connect with the appropriate resources to aid their sisters, brothers, and comrades in the workplace, and union. Participants receive training on interviewing, referrals, communication and so much more. Click here to learn how you can get involved.

Committed to menstrual equity, our Period Promise campaign mobilizes local citizens to address period poverty in our community. Discover how you can get involved in this advocacy campaign here.

Every spring, we host Show Your Local Love Day, a 1-day event supporting local agencies through various volunteer projects, both online and in-person. From mock interviews to tidying gardens, there are many ways to make a difference. Find out more about Show Your Local Love Day here.

During the holiday season, our Holiday Helping Hand program supports hundreds of individuals through local agencies. From adopting a family to contributing to gift and food drives, there are numerous ways to spread joy and support. Program details and registration launch in November each year.

Lastly, our Natural Supports simulation guides participants through interactive scenarios, emphasizing the importance of existing community connections in providing support to those in need. Learn more about this impactful simulation here.

United Way Halton & Hamilton’s Investment Framework consists of three funding streams designed to balance agency stability, maintenance, innovation, and systems–level transformation.

Seed fosters the planting of new ideas and growth in the social sector through short-term, flexible, project-based funding focused on social innovation and capacity building.

Feed is three-year, program-based funding for established programs that align with UWHH investment priorities. Feed recipients report annually and are evaluated through results-based accountability.

Root is five-year agency-based funding for organizations meeting additional criteria and seeking to strengthen their agency at the core. Root funding supports programming, as well as foundational operating needs.

United Way strives to make our investment process fair, transparent and accountable. As part of this, we facilitate a community decision-making process about the investment of donor dollars, where a diverse group of community volunteers review applications using United Way’s overall investment strategy and established criteria. Together, volunteers evaluate the alignment and impact of the grant applications, then make recommendations to United Way which is in turn brainstormed by the team of united way Staff and put forth to the Board of Directors for final investment decisions.

The community volunteers make up United Way’s Community Impact Cabinet. They are a dedicated group of volunteers who play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of our community impact initiatives. They bring together their diverse skills, unique perspectives, and unwavering commitment to drive social change.

The Community Impact Cabinet members are engaged with the Community Impact team of United Way Halton & Hamilton on various fronts. Particularly for evaluating grant applications. The Community Impact Cabinet plays a very important role, supporting United Way’s investment decisions and capacity building supports to non-profit agencies.

To learn more, or to apply to be a part of our Community Impact Cabinet, please click here.

To apply for funding from United Way Halton & Hamilton as an agency, you can start by visiting our website or contacting our local office for information on the application process. We provide detailed guidelines and instructions outlining eligibility criteria, funding priorities, and application deadlines for our funding streams.

Throughout the application process, our team is available to provide support and guidance, including answering any questions you may have and offering resources to help strengthen your proposal.

Yes. The economy, and increasing inflation continues to stretch the social services sector to its limits.

We have seen an increase in operational costs for funded agencies, including wages, rent, supplies, and food costs, which need to be absorbed by the charity or non-profit. This impacts staff on the front-line’s ability to support clients.

Many charities and non-profits deliver their services for free and are unable to pass rising costs along to clients in the form of higher prices. At the same time, the charitable and non-profit sector must find ways to meet the growing demand despite rapidly increasing operational costs.

United Way Halton & Hamilton focuses investments in three priority areas:

• All that Kids Can Be: Helping children and youth reach their full potential
• Healthy People, Strong Communities: Improving neighbourhood health and well-being
• Poverty to Possibility: Promoting financial security and independence

United Way Halton & Hamilton issues tax receipts for donations $25 and above. Tax receipts are mailed or emailed in the weeks following your donation. 

For donations made through payroll deduction, your charitable giving will be included on your T4 slip.

If you, or someone you know, needs social services support, please dial 2-1-1.

211 is Canada’s primary source of information for government and community-based, nonclinical health and social services. The free and confidential service can be accessed in more than 150 languages, by phone, chat, text, and web. 211 helps connect people to the right information and services, making their pathway to care and resources a guided and trusted one.

By dialing 2-1-1, you will reach a knowledgeable, compassionate community navigator trained to listen and support you to find services for your acute needs and any underlying United Way Halton & Hamilton concerns. The navigator will connect you to local community services and programs and inform you of important government benefits and services you can access.