Why We’re Thankful for the United Way

WEXers are passionate about strengthening the communities where we live and work. Our partnership with the United Way provides a powerful opportunity for us to address childhood literacy rates and ensure that youth and families are supported financially, emotionally and socially. Bringing entire communities together to weave an intricate network of support is all in a day’s work for the United Way.

For the past three years, WEX has coordinated a national campaign for the United Way across our U.S. offices. Having just achieved our 2018 fundraising goal, we’re proud to announce that we’ve now successfully raised more than $1.5 million for the United Way since we began working with the organization. This year, we were ambitious: Our campaign goal was nearly double what we raised across the entire campaign three years ago, but thanks to our employees, we met that goal.

Truly a team effort, our annual #WEXUnited campaign is co-chaired by volunteer employees in each office location. The campaign ran from Oct. 18 through Nov. 16, and just as Thanksgiving is each year, the past month has been a great time to reflect on WEX’s core values of integrity, execution, relationships, community and innovation.

Each office was encouraged to interpret engagement with their local United Way, so that it took a different shape in each city. In Omaha, employees dressed up like superheroes to kick off the campaign. In South Portland, we had a huge tent on the lawn outside of our main building, and welcomed partner agencies from the United Way. The event included a clothing drive, and had a cupcake truck, adoptable pets and lawn games like Giant Jenga—all helping to set the tone for a full and fun campaign season.

And this year WEX offered strong matching gift incentives, matching each employee’s gift dollar for dollar up to $25,000—and then matching again for each employee up to $100 through our year-round matching gift program.

Going global with our United Way partnership

WEX’s relationship with the United Way continues to grow stronger. Earlier this year we signed a partnership agreement with the United Way Worldwide, which will serve as a foundation for globalizing our volunteer efforts with the organization in the years ahead.

“We believe passionately in giving our employees the time to explore ways to help their community, and this campaign is a natural outgrowth of that,” said Melissa Dudley, our corporate philanthropy manager. “As WEX grows, we stretch our campaign to be inclusive of all communities where we have a physical presence, and to allow our remote employees to designate their #WEXUnited gift into their own local communities.”

The United Way in action for one of our own team members

Like everything we do here at WEX, the smallest contribution has a dramatic impact. There’s no better example of this in practice than the story of WEXer Kimberly Simard.

Kim’s life was changed by the United Way, and we know that its work truly is transforming lives across the globe. A master relationship builder, it lifts up our communities and tackles social problems with integrity and no small amount of innovation.

For information on how to get involved as a United Way volunteer or to donate to the United Way, contact Melissa Dudley at melissa.dudley@wexinc.com. Your contribution, at any level, makes a meaningful difference.

Read more about WEX and the United Way, including how we received the Spirit of Greater Portland Award in recognition of our partnership with the organization and how we helped the United Way kick off its annual campaign with our award-winning sculpture made from canned goods.