United Way of Weld County cuts staff, restructures

GREELEY — United Way of Weld County has cut seven positions in the face of reductions in government funding, ongoing economic uncertainty, changing philanthropic trends and rising operational costs.

“We have made the difficult decision to eliminate several staff positions and reorganize others as part of a broader organizational restructuring tied to budgetary constraints in the 2026–2027 fiscal year,” CEO Melanie Woolman said in a prepared statement. “Not only will these changes ensure long-term financial stability of the organization, but they will also position the organization to be able to more fully transition to being a Collective Impact backbone organization.”

Nicole Quinn, UWWC’s director of communications and executive support, told BizWest that those being laid off included vice president for community impact Ernest Cienfuegos-Baca, as well as four coordinators and two employees in the Housing Navigation Center at 870 28th St.

The decisions to cut staff and some services were made at the organization’s June 10 board meeting, Quinn said, but Woolman emphasized to BizWest that “there’s no program that is completely shutting down. That was really, really important to our board of directors.”

Clint Dudley, who chairs the board, noted in a prepared statement that “this work is needed now more than ever. Unfortunately, United Way is not the only Weld County nonprofit facing similar challenges. What we are now seeing is nearly an entire sector facing what seems to be an invisible crisis: drastic cuts in funding for services and staffing, paired with demand that is higher than ever before. That is why United Way’s role as a backbone agency is so critical, and why we remain committed to supporting the entire nonprofit sector despite the difficult changes that needed to be made internally this year.”

United Way of Weld County’s annual budget had been “right around $7 million last year, and it’ll be $6.2 million this year,” Woolman said. “It’s an overall reduction of around $746,000.”

Woolman said the decisions were forced by “a few different puzzle pieces that all fell together. This is the unfortunate reality when you rely on government funding.”

The organization “has managed federal funds for a very long time,” she said, “and received around $1.7 million in large contracts at the beginning of the (COVID-19) pandemic.” At the height of that crisis, she said, federal and state grants totaled $4.1 million through “two large pots of COVID dollars” from rapid-response funding and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

“We knew these funds were not ongoing,” Woolman said, “but we also knew we could not pass up this opportunity to do some good work with the money that was available. When we hired some people, we let them know when the funding was running out.

“So we knew some of these layoffs would be happening,” she said, “but it ended up being more than we anticipated,” especially to fund the organization’s early-childhood work. “That was a substantially smaller contract this year,” Woolman said.

The organization also is facing “changing philanthropic trends that the nonprofit sector is trying to react to,” she said. “There are fewer donors and more restrictions. People love specific programs and want to contribute directly to that, so when we’re not seeing as many unrestricted dollars come in, that changes our ability to do that work.”

The cutbacks announced Thursday were not the first, Woolman said. United Way of Weld County in May “had determined we were not best suited to run the Housing Navigation Center in Greeley. We had identified a partner and were working with all the back-end legal issues. But they had to back out in May, so our plans changed. Because that partner was no longer able to do this, our board decided to scale back operations there.”

Starting next Wednesday, she said, United Way of Weld County will no longer offer case-management and housing navigation services such as apartment searches and aid with first and last months’ rent. However, she said, “we will continue to provide day shelter and overnight shelter through next April 15.”

Over the past two years, the organization has been intentionally transitioning away from offering direct-service programs and toward a role as a “Collective Impact backbone” that focuses on “convening partners, guiding vision and strategy, building public will and mobilizing funding to ensure that the nonprofit sector can address complex challenges facing Weld County residents,” according to a news release.

“We feel like we have the best employees in the world,” Woolman said. “We’re doing everything we can to help transition and care for them in this difficult time.”

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