People funding people. At national scale.
Give a little. Change it all.
People funding people. At national scale.
Community investment doesn't just change lives.
It changes neighborhoods.
A study tracking emergency financial assistance through Chicago's Homelessness Prevention Call Center found that people who received temporary financial help were arrested for violent crime 51% less often than people who were eligible but received no assistance. Not eventually. Within one to two years.
NYU researchers studying 264 cities found that each new nonprofit community organization in a city of 100,000 people leads to a 1.2% drop in the homicide rate, a 1% reduction in violent crime, and a 0.7% reduction in property crime.
A separate study found that a one standard deviation increase in social connectedness leads to a 21% decrease in murder and a 20% decrease in motor vehicle theft, alongside significant reductions in rapes, robberies, assaults, and burglaries.
The data has been saying the same thing for decades. When people feel held by their community — when they have somewhere to turn and something real to give back to — crime goes down, health improves, and neighborhoods change. Not because of more enforcement. Because of more connection.
United WE Fund is not just a giving platform. It is community infrastructure. And community infrastructure saves lives.
Sources: Journal of Public Economics, Palmer et al. 2019. Brennan Center for Justice, NYU. PMC Social Connectedness and Crime Study.
THE PSYCHOLOGY
Hope is not a feeling. It is a force.
Psychologist C. Rick Snyder defined hope as the perceived capability to find pathways to desired goals and motivate yourself to use them. Unlike optimism, which is simply the expectation of a better future, hope is action-oriented — and it is a skill that can be learned.
Research published in Science confirms that the relationship between poverty and mental health runs in both directions — negative economic shocks cause mental illness, and antipoverty programs such as direct financial assistance improve mental health.
When someone gets help, they don't just get money. They get agency back.
Research shows that as short-term financial circumstances stabilize, long-term financial goals can be pursued with a higher level of self-efficacy — building confidence, harnessing internal motivation, and empowering people to take risks and try new strategies they would not have considered before.
And perhaps most powerfully — studies suggest that hope is contagious. Being around hopeful individuals inspires similar feelings, creating a ripple effect that enhances collective wellbeing.
This is why United WE Fund encourages the same person to give and receive. Sometimes in the same week. Because the act of contributing — even a dollar, even while you are struggling — is itself an act of hope.
And hope, the research shows, changes everything that comes next.
Sources: APA Monitor on Psychology. Science Journal, Ridley et al. 2020. PMC Financial Stability and Self-Efficacy Research.
Our Founding Sponsors: Ensuring the United WE Fund Launch
Where do you fit in?
I want to give
Your dollar has never worked harder than it does here. You give what feels right — a dollar, two dollars, five — and it joins a community of people doing the same thing. Together you fully fund a real life for a real neighbor. No overhead. No wondering where it went. Just collective power doing what it was always supposed to do.
I'm Ready to Receive
You found something real. A community of people who give because they believe in showing up for strangers — people who have never met you and don't need to. Whatever brought you here, you belong here. And here is something worth knowing: the same platform that receives your need also lets you give back when you are ready. Even a dollar. Because there is power in both directions. And WE know how meaningful that is.
My Organization Believes In People
The brands that step inside this movement now will not be remembered as advertisers. They will be remembered as the organizations that stood with the people before it was obvious. Before the platform was famous. Before the world was watching. There are only 12 Featured Sponsor spots each year, and only permanent founding badges available through 2026. This is your chance to own that moment — and to put your name on something that is going to matter for a very long time.