Strength of the partnership between the Alliance and UNCA is best evidenced by public policy efforts
Rudolph A. Johnson III, president and CEO of UNCA member Neighborhood House Association, San Diego, has had a front-row seat for the affiliation between UNCA and Families International, which is the parent organization for the Alliance and UNCA.
As the new chair of the UNCA Board of Directors and a new member of the Families International Board of Directors, Johnson says the affiliation—now four years strong—has benefitted both UNCA and the Alliance. The union is backed by nearly 500 nonprofit human service organizations.
“I would definitely call us true sister organizations,” Johnson says. He points to the collaboration on public policy efforts as the most prominent display of the strength of this partnership.
“Both the Alliance and UNCA are membership-driven and highly value advocacy and public policy participation,” says Peter Goldberg, who is president and CEO of the Alliance, CEO of UNCA, and president and CEO of Families International. “In four years of operation, this affiliation has heightened our profile and our voice, and we have been able to make great strides in public policy.”
The advantages of a strengthened public policy voice continue to evolve, Johnson adds. “The vision of combining the voices of the Alliance and UNCA memberships is a good one, and we are trying to sharpen that vision. That is part of my challenge as the new chair of the UNCA Board of Directors: to find that unified voice, find those areas of common ground, and magnify them so that we are all heard.”
