One of our partners in this initiative is United Way and their 2-1-1 Referral Service—their partnership has been invaluable during Facing the Mortgage Crisis, because 2-1-1 is able to directly connect people to trusted resources. What’s interesting is that coverage varies in the country—some communities have just one call center, some have none, and others have several.

Through their work on Facing the Mortgage Crisis, stations have already seen their impact, not only on their communities, but on organizations that provide resources—from working with and uniting multiple 2-1-1 call centers, to connecting a new demographic to 2-1-1’s resources, the work of public media can be seen.

WVIZ/ideastream in Cleveland has created a strong partnership with their local 2-1-1 service—their United Way office noted a significant jump in calls once ideastream’s initiative began. They also noticed a new group of people calling into 2-1-1, suggesting that ideastream’s work had cast a web of resources further into Cleveland and its surrounding areas.

For this initiative, KERA in Dallas is working with its 13 local call centers. To help coordinate activities and logistics, KERA set up weekly conference calls with the centers. KERA’s coordination efforts have made working with several call centers possible, so 2-1-1 in the Dallas area can connect as many people as possible to the resources they need.

So what’s the moral of the story?  The resources are out there–fantastic organizations like United Way help connect people to trusted resources in the community.  But sometimes a connector, a convener,  is needed in order to get the word out to as many people as possible–in this case, for this initiative, public media is helping connect more people to organizations like United Way.