Our Story

Erie Together, formed in 2009 and launched countywide in 2010, is a collective impact movement to achieve economic stability for all citizens of Erie County. We do this by facilitating alignment and collaboration among business, education, healthcare, social service, government, workforce development, and faith-based sectors and citizens to make the Erie region a community of opportunity where everyone can learn, work and thrive.

Erie Together is not a social service agency or program. It is a countywide movement of hundreds of individuals and organizations with varying backgrounds working together, and differently within their own personal, professional and volunteer circles, to improve our community, the local economy and people’s lives.

Since its inception, Erie Together’s work has focused on three key areas: helping more children grow up to become successful adults; more individuals secure and maintain family-sustaining jobs; and more families become self-sufficient. The movement’s approach is grounded in strategic, citizen-developed and driven plans that align community expertise, efforts and resources to address pressing challenges and achieve local priorities. 

Erie Together is an essential piece of Erie’s fabric, having created and sustained a widespread spirit and foundation for impactful community collaboration. Because of Erie Together, silos have been broken down, new relationships have been built, and our community is now speaking with one voice on a range of issues related to poverty reduction, and community, workforce and economic development. 

Erie Together moves its work forward through three countywide “action teams” and many smaller, project-based task teams. These teams consist of individuals from many different personal and professional backgrounds bringing their time, talent and expertise to the movement. These teams are very active, and are open to anyone who wants to participate, and our efforts are grounded in these CORE VALUES:

• We PRIORITIZE COMMUNITY, seeking and embracing input from all Erie County stakeholders and citizens to develop and implement our agenda and action plans. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate in Erie Together’s work.

• We COLLABORATE PROACTIVELY, aligning our work and the efforts, expertise, and resources of others to address our region’s top challenges and priorities.

• We PURSUE PROGRESS by setting aside individual agendas and biases, grounding our work in data, tying our efforts to outcomes and action, and monitoring our impact.

• We COMMUNICATE OPENLY within our Erie Together teams, to the public and our funders, and through the media, to move our work forward and grow the Erie Together movement.

• We ACT WITH INTEGRITY, taking informed action for the greater good, rejecting outside pressure of special interests.

• We PERSEVERE, recognizing that the issues we take on can be challenging and complex, but that our impact justifies the effort.  

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