MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: ELISE BUIK AND THE UNITED WAY OF GREATER LOS ANGELES

BY MARISSA MORAN

“Never has there been a more important time for leadership of the Pacific Council than now,” Elise Buik told me in a recent interview. Elise is a member of the Pacific Council Board of Directors and has led United Way of Greater Los Angeles (UWGLA) since 2005, when she made history by becoming the organization’s first woman president and CEO.

The Pacific Council has benefited directly from Elise’s experience and leadership in this current moment of the pandemic, when she stepped in to support our long-term planning efforts as all nonprofits seek to understand how to navigate this new world. As head of UWGLA, Elise has been instrumental in transforming that organization from its historical fundraising role into a community impact organization that identifies social issues, convenes experts, partners with other organizations, and crafts innovative solutions and policy.

I spoke with Elise to put a spotlight on her leadership in a moment of crisis, when our city and our world is experiencing a great need for community action.

United Way is the world’s largest privately-funded nonprofit, with 1,800 communities (or branches) in 40 countries, ranging from Hungary and India to Australia and Argentina. Established in 1887 in Denver, Colorado, United Way is rooted in three building blocks—education, income, and health—all aimed at alleviating poverty, with specific focus areas depending on the locality. UWGLA was founded in 1964 and focuses on education, housing, and economic mobility to permanently break the cycle of poverty for LA’s most vulnerable.

I asked Elise to shed light on her current work during the COVID-19 pandemic, UWGLA’s role in a place like California, and the relevance of the Pacific Council right now.

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Pacific Council: How has United Way's focus shifted during the pandemic?

Elise Buik: Combatting homelessness is our most expansive body of work, especially due to fact that we’re the homeless capital of the nation. In some ways this pandemic exposes the cracks for vulnerable populations. This crisis is very unique, but we went straight to helping with basic needs. First, we focused on raising funds for supplies. The need for this showed up on day one, and government funding and supply chains take a while to get where they are needed.

So, our focus has been on getting supplies, including food and protective gear, to people on the streets and frontline workers who work with the homeless.

Access to information for people on the streets is very limited. They are not in the comfort of their homes. They have no access to food. They’re very vulnerable, and we’ve identified 15,000 people who are either elderly or have underlying conditions, so in addition to basic needs we are working hard to get them into safe places. We’re working with the mayor and the county and the governor on Project Roomkey to get those individuals in hotels for safety during the pandemic.

We’re also getting support to families whose kids are in virtual learning environments.

The last piece will be for workers disproportionally impacted and not eligible for federal dollars. We don’t want more people to fall into homelessness when income is interrupted. When we saw the [LA] fires happen, domestic workers were hit hard. We have been able to build on that network and expand it to other partners who work with street vendors and other people who are not in traditional channels [to receive aid].

In a state like California that has a lot of government services but also a lot of inequality, what do you see is the role of a big nonprofit like United Way?

There are several ways we play a unique role. First—mobilization of resources. We can fundraise but it’s not all money; we also source volunteers and supplies. Being able to raise money is critical, especially when a lot of nonprofits are switching to online environments and getting dollars out to partners who need it. Then we deploy resources to our nonprofit partners.

We also assimilate information and share it with nonprofit partners, funders, and government funders. We connect all the stakeholders. This takes time. We want to do it on behalf of our partners, that’s a value for them, to identify the needs that are emerging and how we can fill them. We can be a broker, an intermediary with government partners and can guide elected officials in their decision-making.

We also have the bandwidth to think about long term recovery—not losing ground on ways to drive change and permanent solutions through this crisis. For example, we don’t want to bring people inside [off the streets] and then have to send them back out to the street. Pre-pandemic, we were focused on affordable housing. Now we need permanent solutions.

We sit in the middle of the community, and we balance short term needs and responses with longer term recovery and permanent solutions. But there are funding gaps. The question is how do we prioritize limited public dollars?

We have been doing two years of work in 90 days. The pandemic has created urgency and more possibilities.

What do you think is the greatest strength of the Pacific Council?

I’m a big fan of the Global LA concept, and the notion of global interconnectedness—what I love about the Pacific Council is that it really shows we are global LA, we are all interconnected. This pandemic shows us that, and we look at solutions on the health side and economic side and those will be global solutions.

We are understanding how localized we can be, how innovation can happen around the world, and how small the community can be through technology and connectedness. This amplifies the role of the Council to make sense of this—for all sectors trying to think about what a post-COVID world looks like.

Also [the Council allows] human connection. It feels like ages ago, but I attended the United Arab Emirates trip [in February] with the Council, and we saw innovative solutions on that trip. Experiences like that open up minds and hearts to what is possible. I have been thinking about food supply in the UAE, and how global food supply chains are being interrupted. We will be looking around the world for solutions and a recovery that creates greater levels of equity.

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Get in touch with Elise if you’re interested in learning more about her work by emailing us at engage@pacificcouncil.org.