December 21, 2020

Dr. Juliette Tuakli

Chair, United Way Worldwide Board of Trustees
CEO/Chief Medical Officer
CHILDAccra
Accra, Ghana

Neeraj Mehta
Chair, United Way USA Board of Trustees
Executive Vice President, Chief Executive Officer
of Payment Solutions and Chief Commercial Officer
Synchrony
Stamford, Connecticut

Dear Chairs of the United Way Worldwide and US Boards of Trustees,

As former employees of United Way Worldwide/of America (UWW), we continue to be fully

committed to the mission of United Way, especially to the extraordinary work and results of local
United Ways across the United States and around the world. We are proud of the work that we
did together and know that many of the initiatives, processes and systems we put into place
and/or contributed to continue to meaningfully impact people and communities to this day.
Our purpose in writing this letter is to share that the experiences voiced by the women in the
November 23, 2020 Huffington Post article are not surprising nor unique. Each of us has either
witnessed, experienced or been made aware of various levels of discrimination, harassment
and/or retaliation for reporting such issues while employed at UWW. We felt our opportunities,
or the opportunities of our female peers, to advance professionally were limited by our gender
as was our ability to be paid equally for equal work. This was pervasive in the culture of the
organization. Our collective time at UWW spans more than two decades, and this culture was in
place during our tenure. While we had many accomplishments during our time at United Way,
we believe we could have been much more effective if we had not been mired in and distracted
by these circumstances.
We believe that United Way plays a critical leadership role in the nonprofit sector. Some of us
chose not to speak up when we were faced with harassment and/or discrimination because we
were afraid it would harm the United Way brand and mission. Instead, we found other jobs.
Most of us left on our own accord, in good standing with United Way. What we now understand,
thanks to the #MeToo movement and growing awareness about protecting women in the
workplace, is that it takes healthy organizations to best serve communities. United Way should
be the gold standard for maintaining a workplace environment free of discrimination and
harassment. Please make the tough decisions necessary as the non-profit community is looking
to you for your leadership, and the ability of women to work in healthy organizations across the
sector depends on what you do in this moment.
We respectfully submit several recommendations to begin the challenging work of transforming
UWW culture to ensure it is a safe, fair and dignified workplace for women:
Recruit new leadership that is committed to building an inclusive and fair culture that is
equally committed to the advancement of women, demonstrated through metrics such as
the Gender and Diversity Alliance Key Performance Indicators www.gdka.org , reported
annually to the Worldwide and US Boards of Trustees;
Rebuild the trust of UWW staff by commissioning a W men Ad i Task Force,
 consisting of current and former UWW women employees and members of both UWW
Boards of Trustees to review and recommend changes that treat women equally,
eliminate long-standing discriminatory practices and provide opportunities for women to
advance. This work should be guided by an outside professional with experience in
creating culture change and gender friendly work environments. The recommendations
of this Task Force would be considered for adoption by the Worldwide and US Boards
not later than the end of the second quarter, 2021. The Taskforce should minimally:

o Establish a standing committee of the Boards to address harassment issues,

opening a direct line of communication between Board liaison and staff, which will
conduct an annual staff survey anonymously and fully separate from staff
leadership, independently review of harassment cases and provide oversight of
whistleblower compliance.
o Establish mandatory (no excuse) harassment training for all executive staff.
o Perform a full review of Human Resources policies and practices, including UWW
staff trust in harassment reporting systems, anti-retaliation practices and
pay-equity practices.
o Develop a system to end the longstanding practice that transfers leaders within
the United Way system or to UWW regardless of history of harassment. This
must include accountability for hiring officials who hire known harassers, not
disciplining harassers, and for providing positive references for known harassers.
o Update policies including gift acceptance policies regarding donors who harass
staff members or other United Way representatives and create a code of conduct
related to board member accountability for harassment.
o Report to the Boards each year on EEOC charges that have been levied against
UWW and provide a limited release for past employees from NDAs which have
been widespread, to ensure these employees can openly communicate with the
Boards.
o Share lessons learned and tools with local United Ways, so that United Ways can
implement strategies for improving their workplaces for women.

We look forward to partnering with you to leverage this moment to best fulfill the United Way
mission that we all care about so deeply. You can reach us at uwwalumniwomen@gmail.com.

Sincerely,
Women Alumni of United Way Worldwide