Press release

United Way of Metro Chicago Teams Up With NowPow to Power Collective Care Across Chicago

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Sponsored by Businesswire

United
Way of Metro Chicago
is implementing NowPow,
a digital platform to power its Neighborhood Network Initiative,
providing community organizations with the tools to digitally find and
connect Chicago-area residents to the services they need to improve
health and quality of life.

NowPow’s technology is a multi-sided community resource referral
platform. NowPow provides neighborhood resource partners the ability to
send and receive referrals to address basic needs and social services
across the network.

The Neighborhood Network Initiative is United Way of Metro Chicago’s
region-wide strategic approach to addressing local community challenges.
With focused collaboration, United Way partners with neighborhood
businesses, nonprofits, schools and leaders to identify their biggest
challenges and develop solutions that create measurable impact. There
are currently 10 Neighborhood Networks across the city and suburbs.

United Way of Metro Chicago is implementing a pilot of NowPow in the
Austin neighborhood in June 2019. NowPow will allow all partners in the
Neighborhood Network to coordinate referrals and track outcomes at the
individual and neighborhood level. Once residents have been connected to
resources, United Way’s Neighborhood Networks can identify entry points
and address gaps in service. With the help of NowPow, United Way of
Metro Chicago can more easily assess each neighborhood’s unique needs by
understanding the relationship between resource supply and demand.

“Our Neighborhood Network partners are already providing fantastic
services. The challenge is ensuring that people know how to access all
the resources they need,” said Sean Garrett, President and CEO of United
Way of Metro Chicago. “With NowPow, we’ll be able to increase access to
much-needed services for the residents of Chicago, building stronger
neighborhoods and a stronger region.”

“Originally, we looked to achieve this level of coordination and
collaboration through a vendor relationship, whereby Austin Coming
Together (ACT) would pay a technology platform provider for its efforts,
but we quickly agreed it should be a partnership. This is why we are
excited to support United Way in their efforts to work with NowPow to
create a platform that could be used across nonprofits and possibly
government agencies,” said Darnell Shields, Executive Director of Austin
Coming Together. “Neither ACT or United Way want to get into the
technology business, so we needed a partner. NowPow was perfect, because
its software is already equipped with a referral gateway and used by
many of our healthcare partners.”

The Neighborhood Network partners are focused on addressing basic needs
like food and housing, along with early childhood learning, workforce
development, and living-wage jobs.

“We’re excited to partner with United Way of Metro Chicago to further
the reach of its Neighborhood Network initiative,” said Rachel Kohler,
CEO of NowPow. “This partnership will also expand the number of
community organizations on NowPow, making the platform a more
comprehensive community resource for all users throughout Chicago. This
is a wonderful example of how translational science can lift up an
entire community.”

This work extends impact from a 2012-2015 Center for Medicare and
Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Health Care Innovation Award and National
Institutes of Health-funded research, led by the Lindau Lab at The
University of Chicago.

NowPow is already connecting health and community care in the city of
Chicago with more than a dozen large health systems, community providers
and payers, as well as a wide array of community-based organizations
already on the platform. More than one million people in Cook County are
currently included in NowPow’s patient database.

About United Way of Metro Chicago

United Way of Metro Chicago fights for the health, education, financial
stability and safety of every person in every neighborhood across the
region. We advance the common good on both a regional and neighborhood
level by focusing on the building blocks for thriving people and
communities: access to quality health care, a good education, financial
stability and ensuring people are safe. United Way’s Neighborhood
Network Initiative supports and coordinates investment and programming
in 10 city and suburban communities to address community challenges and
improve the lives of residents. Join the fight at LIVEUNITEDchicago.org.

About Austin Coming Together

Austin Coming Together (ACT) is a member based 501(c)3 organization
whose primary goal is to increase the collective impact of their member
organizations in improving education and economic development outcomes
for the Austin community. For more information visit, AustinComingTogether.org.

About NowPow

NowPow is a woman-owned and led technology company that supports
collective care across communities. NowPow, whose name is a play on
“knowledge is power,” is a multi-sided referral platform that includes a
hyperlocal community resource directory, social determinants of health
(SDOH) screenings, resource matching algorithms, closed loop referrals,
and more. NowPow uniquely connects both sides of the referral process to
better support a community’s entire network of health and social
resources in order to help people get well, stay well, manage with
disease, and care for others. For more information, visit www.NowPow.com
and engage with us on LinkedIn,
Twitter,
Facebook
and Instagram.