What it means to be a Tulsa Area United Way sustainability partner

When people hear that The Arc of Oklahoma is a Tulsa Area United Way sustainability partner, most assume that means a pool of money we can draw from whenever we need it. Something like a standing grant, there when we need it, drawn down as expenses come up. That is not what this is.

A sustainability partnership is not a grant. It is a relationship, and it works differently than most funding does, in ways that actually matter for how we're able to serve families.

What a sustainability partnership funds

United Way does not hand partner organizations a check and step back. Sustainability partners undergo a review process to qualify, and once accepted, report outcomes once a year during the grant application process. That annual process keeps us accountable to the community that funds us.

In exchange, we get something a one-time grant cannot offer: consistency. We can plan programs knowing this relationship exists, instead of rebuilding our budget from scratch every funding cycle and hoping the numbers work out.

That sounds like a small distinction, but for an organization serving families on timelines that do not follow a grant calendar, it changes what we’re able to commit to. Tulsa Area United Way funding supports our work within its eight-county service area: Tulsa, Creek, Wagoner, Okmulgee, Osage, Rogers, Mayes, and Delaware counties. For families in those communities, needs like a Medicaid denial do not wait for a funding cycle to line up with a crisis. Sustainability funding is part of what lets us respond consistently.

The accountability that comes with it

This kind of partnership is not just an easier source of funding; it comes with a level of scrutiny that many donors do not realize occurs behind the scenes. United Way reviews our financials, our program outcomes, and our governance as part of the annual grant application process. We do not get to coast on a good reputation from a decade ago. Every year, we have to show that the trust is still earned.

We think that’s the right standard. When we’re asking companies and individual donors to trust us with recurring support, the least we can do is show that the trust is warranted.

Why this matters for families

None of this is abstract to the families we serve within the Tulsa Area United Way service area, even if they never see the paperwork behind it. It shows up in whether a family support specialist can pick up the phone when a mom calls about a Medicaid denial and needs someone who knows the process. It shows up in whether we can keep Arc@School running for the special education advocates who register for it, session after session, instead of pausing the program while we chase down one-time funding.

Sustainability funding does not pay for a single event or a single campaign. It pays for the staff and the systems that let us show up consistently, which is the same thing families tell us they need most from us. Not a one-time favor, and not a program that disappears when the grant year ends, but somebody who is still there the next time they call, and the time after that.

What this partnership looks like in Tulsa

Locally, this partnership means we are one of the organizations United Way has vetted and trusts to do this work well, which puts us in the same room as other Tulsa nonprofits doing serious, accountable work. As a sustainability partner with Tulsa Area United Way, The Arc of Oklahoma also has the opportunity to be matched with a corporation for TAUW’s annual Day of Caring.

ONEOK selects multiple Day of Caring projects across Tulsa each year, and Carnival of Caring has been one of them for the past six years. We’ve been told it’s a popular choice among ONEOK employees, with volunteer slots filling quickly each year.

It also means something for how Tulsa sees us. We are not asking people to take our word for it that we run a tight, well-managed organization. United Way has already looked us over and vouched for us.

Carnival of Caring is where you'll see it

This year’s Carnival of Caring is happening September 18 at LaFortune Park, co-sponsored by ONEOK. It is a picnic, not a project, with games, a DJ, tie-dye, lunch, and about 150 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their direct support professionals spending an afternoon together in a park rather than in a service office.

If you want to see what a sustainability partnership looks like once it hits the ground and is past the paperwork and reporting cycles, this is it.

RSVP for Carnival of Caring

👉 https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=zeNkD6iM90qEFXo0lK--7NfbLPpaQoVAoWPyUPmTYwVUMERUMEpCSk1PS1o3RTJQRjJFU01IN0RZMC4u

The goal for the 2026 Tulsa Area United Way fundraising campaign is $27,126,211. We encourage you to support the campaign so The Arc of Oklahoma and our fellow sustainability partners have the resources needed to continue meeting the needs of our friends and neighbors throughout the TAUW service area.

We’re also grateful to Maureen and Lane Wilson for serving as co-chairs of this year’s campaign.

We do not talk about this partnership because United Way's name looks good next to ours. We talk about it because it is one of the reasons we can keep showing up for families, month after month, without them having to wonder whether we will still be here next year.