United Way of Steele County • 2025 Community Report Card
Outcomes, not just numbers served
We have changed our priorities — and how we report on them. Instead of leading with how many people were served, this Report Card leads with what is actually changing in Steele County: the condition in our community, the work United Way and our partners are doing about it, and whether things are moving in the right direction.
United Way mobilizes communities to action so all can thrive.
Who we are
Our mission, vision, and values
Our Mission
Uniting our communities to address critical needs, foster equity, and empower individuals for lasting change.
Our Vision
Steele County will be a thriving community where every individual is empowered to succeed, supported by a culture of engagement, collaboration, equity, and compassion.
Our Values
Collaboration
No single organization can move a county outcome alone. We bring partners, workplaces, and neighbors to the same table.
Empowerment
People uplift themselves. Our work opens pathways so individuals and families can build their own lasting change.
Equity
Every community in Steele County should be able to reach the resources that exist here — and be part of shaping them.
Innovation
We test new approaches, measure honestly whether they work, and share what we learn — including on this page.
Our global United Way promise: United Way mobilizes communities to action so all can thrive.
Why we changed
A clearer promise to our community
Counting people served told you how busy we were. It did not tell you whether life in Steele County was getting better. So we rebuilt our priorities around nine outcomes — and we are rebuilding our measurement around them, in the open.
What we used to report
Numbers served, attendances, and activity counts. Useful for running programs — but a full room is not the same thing as a changed life, and adding attendances together can count the same neighbor many times.
What we report now
For every outcome: one community condition (a county measure, with its year and source), one United Way contribution (what we and our funded partners did about it), and a plain-language direction — improving, mixed, or just getting started.
What we will not do
We will not dress up a state or national estimate as a Steele County fact, and we will not present program activity as proof that a county rate moved. Where the honest answer is “we are still building this measure,” this Report Card says so.
How to read the labels on this page
Ready — county trend
A verified Steele County figure we can track year to year.
Baseline only
Our starting point, from UWSC’s original outcomes document. It shows where
we began — not where we are today — and it is scheduled to be re-measured.
Building the measure
No honest county number exists yet. We name what we will collect, and from whom,
instead of filling the space with a borrowed statistic.
Mixed
The direction is not one simple story, and we say why.
At a glance
Four impact areas, nine outcomes
Headline finding • Financial Security
Nearly 1 in 3 households can’t afford the basics here
In 2024, 32% of Steele County households were below the ALICE Threshold — 23% were ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed: working, but still unable to afford the basic household budget) and 9% were in poverty. That is a one-point improvement on our 33% baseline, and it is still nearly one in three of our neighbors.
Households below the ALICE Threshold, Steele County: ALICE households Households in poverty
See the ALICE data table
| Year | ALICE | Poverty | Below threshold | Above threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 20% | 9% | 29% | 71% |
| 2012 | 24% | 10% | 34% | 66% |
| 2014 | 22% | 11% | 33% | 67% |
| 2016 | 20% | 10% | 30% | 70% |
| 2018 | 22% | 11% | 33% | 67% |
| 2019 | 22% | 10% | 32% | 68% |
| 2021 | 24% | 9% | 33% | 67% |
| 2022 | 24% | 9% | 33% | 67% |
| 2023 | 24% | 8% | 32% | 68% |
| 2024 | 23% | 9% | 32% | 68% |
Percentages may not add perfectly due to rounding.
Source: United for ALICE, Steele County profile, 2024 (series 2010–2024).
Ready — county trend Direction: improving slowly. The share below the threshold has held at 32–33% for six straight measurement years. Stability is not success — this is the number our Financial Security work exists to move.
1. Improved access to healthcare and mental health support
Our outcome: increase the percentage of residents with access to primary care and mental health services.
What the data says: The need is clear and continuing — mental health access remains a named regional priority, and transportation is a documented barrier to care in Steele County. What we do not yet have is an honest county “access” rate: the number of providers and the share of residents who can actually get care are not the same measure, and this page will not pretend they are.
What we are measuring next: the annual uninsured percentage; adults with a usual source of care; behavioral-health wait times; and our own contribution — 211 referrals and completed mental-health and healthcare connections through partners.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Steele County; Dodge–Steele Community Health Improvement Plan 2025–2029; Steele County Resource Directory, revised September 2025; UWSC original outcomes baseline (5.1%).
2. Comprehensive health improvement
Our outcome: increase access to healthy food, physical activity, preventive screenings, and vaccinations.
The community response — Community Pathways of Steele County: our local food shelf is the Community Pathways Marketplace in Owatonna, supplied primarily through Channel One Regional Food Bank (Rochester), the food bank for southeastern Minnesota. In 2024 the Marketplace moved food at a scale this community should know about:
Those are response figures, not the county food-insecurity rate, and we label them that way on purpose: both numbers matter, and they answer different questions. Our own contribution includes Ride United food access — delivery that gets community meals to neighbors who cannot get to the Community Meals due to transportation barriers and/or mental health challenges. Ride United picks up and delivers prepared meals from all four Community Meal sites — Our Saviors, St. Joseph’s, Bethel, and Trinity Lutheran churches. These are prepared, nutritious meals that many neighbors would not otherwise have access to, so the Community Meal sites’ meal counts are part of this outcome too: Community Pathways and the Marketplace are one vital source of food in Steele County, not the only one we work with.
What we are measuring next: the annual county food-insecurity rate; Marketplace households served (unduplicated) and pounds distributed, reported by Community Pathways each year; prepared meals served at the four Community Meal sites and Ride United food access deliveries and neighbors reached; screening and vaccination rates from Dodge–Steele public health data; and adults reporting no leisure-time physical activity.
Sources: Community Pathways of Steele County, 2024 service reporting (families, individuals, and weekly Marketplace volume, reported to Steele County; 2.3 million pounds distributed in 2024, reported by Community Pathways at the 2025 United Way campaign celebration); Channel One Regional Food Bank service area (southeastern Minnesota, including Steele County); Steele County Public Health data portal; Community Meal sites — Our Saviors, St. Joseph’s, Bethel, and Trinity Lutheran churches (prepared meal counts to be reported annually; framing confirmed with UWSC, October 2026); UWSC original outcomes baseline (9.3% and 22.9%). An earlier draft of this Report Card cited Great Plains Food Bank figures for “Steele County” — that is Steele County, North Dakota, and those figures have been removed.
3. Early childhood: child development and care
Our outcome: increase enrollment in high-quality early childhood education and improve access to affordable, quality childcare.
What the data says: statewide, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development reports that high care costs and low childcare-sector wages undermine both family access and workforce stability. The measures that matter here are slots, vacancies, cost, and stability — not provider counts alone.
What we are measuring next: licensed capacity by age group (infant, toddler, preschool); vacancies and waitlists; median weekly price; scholarship recipients; early-learning participation; and kindergarten readiness.
Sources: Minnesota DEED Child Care Reports; Minnesota Early Childhood Longitudinal Data System; Child Care Aware of Minnesota; UWSC original outcomes baseline (2,134 children; 88 providers).
4. Middle school: mentorship and leadership
Our outcome: expand youth participation in mentorship and leadership development.
What the data says: there is no countywide baseline for mentoring in Steele County — public datasets simply do not capture mentoring relationships. Rather than borrow a national program statistic and call it ours, we are building this measure with the partners who do the work: Big Brothers Big Sisters, our schools, and UPLIFT / the Teen Center.
What we will report, starting with this cycle: unduplicated youth in mentoring; active matches and how long they last; the share of matches reaching a minimum duration; youth leadership roles and hours; and — from the Minnesota Student Survey and our Communities That Care assessment — whether young people report a connection to a caring adult and a sense of belonging at school. Those last measures are the outcome. Enrollment is just the doorway.
Sources: UWSC measurable outcomes documents; Minnesota Student Survey; Steele County Communities That Care Community Assessment (Phase 3, 2026); local partner administrative data, collection being designed.
5. High school: youth success and employment
Our outcome: increase graduation, and the percentage of youth in employment, training, or postsecondary education.
What the data says: graduation and what comes next are two different questions. A strong graduation rate does not by itself show that young adults are connected to a job, training, or further education — so we will report them separately, and we have retired the national “disconnected youth” proxy our earlier materials used.
What we are measuring next: MDE graduation rates by district and student group; chronic absenteeism; SteeleCo.Works placements, credentials, hours, and wages; and postsecondary enrollment within 16 months of graduation.
Sources: Minnesota Department of Education Data Center and Minnesota Report Card; Statewide Longitudinal Education Data System (SLEDS); UWSC original outcomes baseline (4.5%).
6. Economic empowerment and employment
Our outcome: increase households achieving a living wage, improve financial capability, and increase stable full-time employment.
What the data says: ALICE is the clearest trend we can stand behind today, and it frames the work: nearly one in three working households here cannot afford the basic household budget. Our earlier materials used a national estimate for financial capability; we have retired it in favor of local results we can verify.
What we are measuring next: VITA tax-preparation households, refunds, and credits returned to Steele County families; financial coaching completion and pre/post gains; jobs paying a living wage; and employment retention — not just placement.
Sources: United for ALICE, Steele County 2024 profile; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED, Steele County labor-force series, June 2026.
7. Affordable housing
Our outcome: increase affordable housing availability and housing stability, on the path to long-term security.
Eviction filings, Steele County
What the data says: filings fell from 134 in 2023 to 113 in 2024 — a welcome step, but still above 2022’s 112, and three years is not yet a trend. Statewide, the Minnesota Housing Partnership’s 2026 profiles confirm a shortage of rentals affordable to extremely low-income households in every Minnesota county; the Steele-specific shortage figure is being extracted for the next update rather than estimated here.
What we are measuring next: renter and owner cost burden; the extremely low-income rental gap; eviction filings each year; and our contribution — households diverted from homelessness, rent and utility assistance, and whether families are still housed at 6 and 12 months.
Sources: UWSC original outcomes baseline (eviction filings 2022–2024; 3,515 cost-burdened households); Minnesota Housing Partnership 2026 County Profiles; American Community Survey; Minnesota Judicial Branch / Legal Services Corporation Civil Court Data Initiative.
8. Emergency preparedness and crisis support
Our outcome: increase safety, support, and preparedness for people facing an emergency — whether that emergency hits the whole county at once, or one household in private.
How this outcome works in Steele County: our partners carry this work in two directions at once. The first is the human emergency: the Crisis Resource Center stands with people experiencing domestic violence, and the Exchange Club Center for Family Unity works to prevent child abuse and support families before a crisis deepens. The second is community-wide readiness: households prepared for severe weather and disaster, and trained volunteers ready to respond — through Steele County Emergency Management and its network (CERT, the Medical Reserve Corps, SKYWARN, RACES, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Civil Air Patrol, and others). A resilient county needs both, so this Report Card now measures both, separately.
What the data says: the response network is real and documented, in both directions. What is missing is a current, shared count: refreshed preparedness and volunteer figures on the disaster side, and a consistent annual count from our crisis partners on the human side. Disaster and crisis response work — including flood recovery — will be reported as our contribution, kept separate from county preparedness rates.
What we are measuring next: on the human side — unduplicated people receiving domestic-violence advocacy and support; families served by child-abuse prevention and family-support programs; and referrals completed to safety and stability resources. On the readiness side — household plan and emergency-kit rates; alert enrollment; trained and active volunteers; households assisted after a disaster; unmet needs resolved; and recovery dollars and volunteer hours.
Sources: Steele County Emergency Management, volunteer opportunities; UWSC original outcomes baseline (52%; 175 CERT members); partner framing confirmed with UWSC, October 2026 (Crisis Resource Center; Exchange Club Center for Family Unity).
9. Community engagement, belonging, and access for all
Our outcome: bring all of Steele County’s communities together — increasing participation and volunteerism, and making sure every community can actually access the resources that exist here. This is our value of equity, put to work.
How this outcome works in Steele County: partners like the Alliance for Greater Equity work to identify and remove the barriers that keep some neighbors from fully participating in community life, and Rainbow Owatonna builds connection and belonging with LGBTQ+ neighbors and allies. Alongside them, workplaces, congregations, schools, and service clubs create the everyday participation this outcome counts. Engagement that only reaches part of the county is not engagement — so this outcome tracks not just how many people take part, but who is able to take part, and whether everyone can find and use the help that exists.
What the data says: volunteering, showing up, belonging, and being able to access resources are related — but they are not the same thing, and this page reports them separately. We also will not add attendances across events and call the total “residents reached”: the same neighbor at five events is one neighbor, five times.
What we are measuring next: our own unique volunteers, hours, projects, and repeat rate; unduplicated event participation, looked at across the county’s communities where the data is reliable and privacy-safe; use of community connectors such as 211 and our Resource Room, and whether people who need a resource can actually reach it; and one consistent annual question set on belonging, trusted help, and access, so year-to-year change actually means something.
Sources: UWSC original outcomes baseline (45%; 77%); Minnesota Compass volunteerism resources; UWSC volunteer records, collection being built; partner framing confirmed with UWSC, October 2026 (Alliance for Greater Equity; Rainbow Owatonna).
Keeping ourselves honest
How this Report Card gets updated
An outcomes report is only worth trusting if the measuring never stops. Here is the annual rhythm behind this page:
Community partners report using a shared template — the measure’s plain-language definition, reporting period, unduplicated people or households, Steele County residents only or wider service area, prior-year values on the same definition, and any known limitations — so that next year’s comparison is a real one.
Sources and notes
Where every number came from
Every figure on this page carries its year and geography with it. “Latest” means the newest period its source publishes — which is not always 2025 — and the page says so rather than rounding a figure up to the Report Card year. Program outputs are never presented as population-level change, and small numbers are reported in ways that protect privacy.
- United for ALICE — Steele County profile, 2024
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED — Steele County labor force
- Minnesota Housing Partnership — 2026 County Profiles
- Community Pathways of Steele County — the Marketplace food shelf, Owatonna
- Community Pathways — What We Do (Marketplace and Marketplace Delivery)
- Steele County Public Health — data portal
- Dodge–Steele Community Health Improvement Plan 2025–2029
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts — Steele County
- Minnesota Department of Education — Data Center
- Minnesota DEED — Child Care Reports
- Steele County Emergency Management — volunteer opportunities
Prepared October 2026 from the United Way of Steele County 2025 Report Card Data Workbook (working draft), which documents each indicator’s definition, readiness, and limitations in full.
Be part of the next Report Card
Every improvement on this page will be the result of neighbors, workplaces, and partners acting together. Give, volunteer, or reach out — and if you or someone you know needs help today, dial 211 for free, confidential connections to local resources.
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