United Way reviews

SparkPoint, in conjunction with our MatchBridge youth employment program and our free tax assistance program, Earn It, Keep It, Save It, is making real and quantifiable progress in breaking the cycle of poverty in the Bay Area. Thanks for recognizing it in your review! Working closely with nonprofit, corporate, and government partners, we have touched the lives of thousands of Bay Area residents in lasting ways. One sign of our effectiveness is the resounding philanthropic support we received for opening a new SparkPoint center in San Jose this year. That brings the total number of SparkPoint locations in the Bay Area to 21. Not something we could have imagined when we launched the program in 2009! Having just come through a merger, we have been racing to incorporate a large new county, Santa Clara, into our daily activities and work flow. The effort has been tremendous and it has stretched our small staff to its max. Now that we have accomplished the bulk of the integration, we're confident that evolving systems and processes will function smoothly. Certainly, we will continue and expand our efforts on communicating the changes necessitated by adding this big new territory. We are pleased that we have been able to respond to employee desires for a flexible workplace by offering staggered work times, telecommuting, and alternative schedules. That, combined with our commitment to getting staff out into the 8 counties across which we work, can be irritating to those who prefer a more structured, more routine workplace. We rely on tools like GoToMeeting and Salesforce Chatter to bring people together, but we understand that some do not find that kind of connectivity an adequate alternative. We believe that our average employee tenure of 10 years, an annual retention rate of 74%, and a strong track record of promoting from within demonstrates the care with which we balance the need to retain skilled employees with the need to recruit and develop new talent. I'm sorry that our focus on balancing the needs of all of our staff gave you the impression that we favor some staff members over others. That is not the case.