Passionate New Director of “Women United” Starts at United Way Quad Cities
Ashley Hicks has spent her whole professional career in banking, but she’s cashed in her experience on and off the job, and is investing it into a major nonprofit – as the new Women United director for United Way Quad Cities. She and her boss already are seeing it reap profitable rewards.
The Women United program of United Way Quad Cities started in 2011 and has raised nearly $5.5 million.
“I have watched Ashley from afar, in all of her involvement in the community and her passion. She wears it on her sleeve,” United Way president/CEO Rene Gellerman said Thursday. “Plus, her energy and excitement. She’s very well-known in the community and that’s a great asset for us. Her passion for the community makes a huge difference. You’ve got to have that when you work for United Way.
“She’s obviously very articulate, and cares about kids, and you can see that all over her social media and things she’s involved in,” she added. “I think she’s a terrific asset and I’m excited to see what she does.”
Women United (www.unitedwayqc.org/womenunited) is a group of caring women who are dedicated to make the Quad-Cities the best place for kids to grow up.
Rene Gellerman is president/CEO of United Way Quad Cities.
Since 2011, nearly 200 Women United investors have raised and invested nearly $5.5 million in research-based strategies to support quality child care and early learning experiences for our youngest Quad Citizens. They have invested in quality child care opportunities for families, and education and retention of child-care providers in the Quad-Cities.
“Their priority is really to help support parents and our youngest Quad Citizens,” Gellerman said, noting they focus on children up to 8 years old. “They mobilize about 250 women who contribute anywhere, usually starting $1,000 a year.”
Their first goal was to increase the number of child-care slots in the area. “It was to ensure that more kids had access to early, quality child care services,” Gellerman said.
Women United has its own steering committee, of about 25 women, who meet every other month. It’s similar to the African American Leadership Society, which started in 2019.
Ashley Hicks started as new director Aug. 23, succeeding Leslee Cook, and the program was originated by Jen Dobrunz, who formerly worked for United Way and is now the executive director of the Quad Cities Cultural Trust.
Hicks’s job is to develop and build donor and volunteer relationships while working to create volunteer engagement strategies, and also develops and coordinates early childhood interventions focused on preparing children to be successful in kindergarten and build community will for the importance of early childhood.
She previously worked for 20 years in Q-C banking, for MetroBank, American Bank & Trust, and the last four years at Northwest Bank and Trust (a major United Way supporter).
After a 20-year career in Q-C banking, Ashley Hicks started her new job as Women United director Aug. 23.
“I’ve done a lot of volunteer work,” Hicks said of Girl Scouts, one year on the Humility Homes board, and Junior League. “I’ve always wanted to be involved in the community. My biggest job in banking was relationship building; that’s really what I was focused on, what I was good at. So I’m taking those same skills and bringing them here – working on building relationships with women in Women United and growing that area, into something that can really be transformative here.”
Hicks’s last job was retail market manager, working with local businesses in whatever services they needed.
A Hampton native and United Township grad, she and her husband John (who works in management for Tyson Foods) have twin 13-year-old daughters, so she intimately understands the needs of kids.
“Humility Homes receives support from United Way and I know the biggest thing is, United Way doesn’t put a lot of hoops up. I know from that board, they were very appreciative of the support that United Way gives,” Hicks said. “The fact that there are people in the Quad-Cities that are struggling to meet basic needs such as housing, I think we live in a community where it’s not as in our face as other communities, it’s very easy to believe that it doesn’t exist. And I wanted to be a part of helping those and correcting that. There shouldn’t be such a wide gap between residents in the Quad-Cities.”
Northwest Bank has been a strong partner of United Way and its annual campaign, Gellerman said. Bank president/CEO Joe Slavens and their team “go all out to support the community and United Way is one of their big benefactors,” she said. Hicks said it’s a goal for Slavens to
A United Township alum with 13-year-old twin daughters, Hicks is seen at United Way’s Bettendorf offices Aug. 26, 2021.
make the Top 10 of United Way’s community partners in their workplace campaigns.
Northwest Bank is very invested in the nonprofit, Hicks said.
“It’s way a small company can really make a big impact in the Quad-Cities,” she said. “United Way allows you to basically instead of doing a little here and here, make the biggest impact and affect the most Quad Citizens. We all succeed when everybody does well.”
Slavens “is very passionate when he speaks about it, and we always did some kind of kickoff,” Hicks said of raising money for United Way. “Joe spoke from his heart about his reasons why he believed in United Way. From there, we did workplace campaign events, and he was very good about – for Day of Caring and volunteerism and he was very supportive of my and other employees’ desires to volunteer and get involved.”
The Day of Caring was planned for Sept. 23, but is being cancelled because of Covid, Gellerman said. “A lot of Day of Caring is made up of our corporate partners, and our corporate partners were concerned. You look at John Deere and Arconic. They are being very careful about promoting gatherings with their employees.”
United Way is recommending people still volunteer year-round and offers an online Volunteer Hub with those opportunities, at https://unitedwayqc.galaxydigital.com/.
Some of Hicks’s priorities include working with parents to help ensure their kids are ready for kindergarten and improving access to quality early childhood education and child care.
“From somebody that worked in the corporate world, what I like about that is, companies can even do it different days,” Hicks said. “In my world, a bank can’t shut down for a day. This allows the employees to maybe find a way to do stuff on the weekend, after hours. It’s something I would love to see people get involved in and check out.”
Among Women United’s accomplishments are:
- Raised $2.5 million toward the building of the Scott County Family YMCA Learning Center in downtown Davenport, which opened in 2016.
- Invested $275,000 to improve local child care and education facilities and support training and professional development for local providers.
- More than 950 local children and families have graduated from Born Learning Academies that have been hosted by 22 Quad-Cities organizations.
- 1,000 families receive a minimum of 3 text messages a week with activities and tips for turning everyday moments into teaching moments.
- 90,000 Born Learning calendars have been distributed since 2015, with 365 days of activities for parents to do with their children.
Meeting local needs through Covid and beyond
Improving education is one of the core tenets of the Q-C United Way, as it found one in six kids in the Q-C start kindergarten without the skills needed to succeed. A child who is not ready for kindergarten is twice as likely not to be ready at grade-level by third grade, Gellerman said.
Third grade is a pivotal point; if you fall behind, chances are you may stay there the rest of your life, according to United Way. It says students unable to read at grade level by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.
One of the award winners received a check from Women United this past May in “The Pitch” competition.
“When a child is ready for kindergarten, they’re twice as likely to be reading by third grade,” Gellerman said. “That third grade is really the key lever, that helps determine the success of kids. That’s one of their priorities, to help these kids – particularly kids of color.”
In the Q-C, 84 percent of white children are ready for kindergarten, compared to 71 percent of kids of color, according to United Way. Just 43 percent of children of color are reading at grade level in third grade, compared to 73 percent of white children, it found.
This past May, Women United led a new competition (with KWQC) called “The Pitch,” to offer prizes to the best ideas to improve children’s literacy and make sure they don’t fall behind in school. The winners were:
- Rise United ($40,000):“Bridging Literacy” – Moline Public Library and Project Now: Headstart, helping non-English speaking families with three to five-year-old children gain access to more reading materials by bringing literature to them and providing parents help as students learn.
- Entrepreneurial Spirit Award ($20,000):“P.A.S.T” – Martin Luther King Center, P.A.S.T. (Parents and Schools Together) will have the Martin Luther King Center as the space to bring together 25% school administrators and 75% parents to gather input and ideas on improving reading skills for children.
- Stronger Together Awards (2 winners for $10,000 each):“SHEro Festival” – Love Girls Magazine, “Level Up” – Two Rivers YMCA, SHEro Festival will get young girls to put together their own zines and present those projects at a festival, giving them a chance to see themselves and strong women in literature. Level Up will bring kids into e-sports as a way to inspire reading through different programs. The Twin Rivers YMCA will help bring this to kids throughout all of the Q-C area.
“We had 15 local organizations, nonprofits, that participated in a 12-week learning cohort to look at the challenges, and really be creative and innovative about solutions,” Gellerman said. Women United underwrote the prizes, to improve grade-level reading of students, and hosted “The Pitch,” televised on KWQC.
“That really inspired those organizations to think differently,” she said, noting Joe Slavens was one of the four judges.
Individuals who earned the awards were:
- Rise United Award ($40,000): Christina Conklin (Moline Public Library) + Misi Birdsall (Project NOW, Inc.) in a collaborative pitch
- Entrepreneurial Spirit Award ($20,000): Jerry Jones (The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center)
- Stronger Together Awards (2 winners for $10,000 each): Teresa Babers (Love Girls Magazine) and Jeff Cornelius (Two Rivers YMCA)
- Audience Choice Award ($5,000): Teresa Babers (Love Girls Magazine)
Together for Tomorrow participants who completed the program each received grants, bringing the total awarded to Q-C nonprofits and innovators to $100,000.
Together for Tomorrow — one of United Way Quad Cities’ capacity-building programs launched earlier this year — is a resource group for nonprofits focused on education. “The Pitch” was essentially the culminating event of the first session. More information and a list of cohort participants is available at www.unitedwayqc.org/togetherfortomorrow.
Another new Women United program started last year was the Quad Cities Tutor Connection, an easy-to-access tutor connecting site for parents with students in grades K-12. The program was launched during the Covid pandemic to help students deal with the unprecedented learning environment.
“I’m excited to turn some of that passion toward the younger generations and help some of the areas with Women United,” she said. Their main focus is on the United Way Born Learning Academy – a six-week program to support parents of young kids, and helps those parents be their child’s first and best teacher, Hicks said.
“We provide a meal, we provide child care and we’re usually in an area the parent can easily get to, to take away all those barriers,” she said. The free program is aimed at parents of pre-K kids, to help them be prepared to start school.
“They’re often held in more marginalized neighborhoods, churches and schools,” Gellerman said. “It really is a success story that’s probably not as well-known as it should be. That’s a program that Women United incubated and now, if we can get over Covid, we have data that prove it works.”
Since the pandemic, the now-eight-year program has mostly been offered virtually, and women can take classes online – in groups of 12 to 15. They usually do two sessions a year. “It was a great learning opportunity too, because some of the barriers for parents’ participation could be, a child’s sick so they can’t come that night. They can still do them, and log in virtually, so they won’t miss a session.”
“In addition to supporting those parents, helping them learn about social-emotional development, it’s an opportunity for parents to build relationships among themselves,” Gellerman said of Born Learning. “They can talk about the common things they’re facing.”
United Way offers free Kindles to families that finish the program, loaded with apps for kids, as well as gift cards given along the way to incentivize parents to attend, Hicks said. “It’s an amazing program and I’m excited to get started and unpack all that.”
Starting this fall, she’d like to continue Born Learning, offered as hybrid online and in person.
“We’ve learned through Covid that sometimes that technology does help,” Hicks said. “I do have some facilitators who are very excited to go in person. I think it’s going to depend on the location – what the location feels. Due to Covid, we have different rules in place depending on what side of the river we’re on.”
For more information on United Way programs, visit www.unitedwayqc.org.
