About United Way of Buffalo and Erie County
We bring people, organizations, and resources together to create systemic community change.
Focus Areas
Healthy CommunityFinancial SecurityYouth OpportunityCommunity ResiliencyNonprofit capacity building / resources
Who They Fund
low-income individuals and householdsfamilies experiencing housing instabilitychildren and youth (girls in particular)residents of Buffalo / Western New York communitiestax-filers with limited resources (low‑income filers)
Funding Style
program funding
About United Way of Buffalo and Erie County
A defining feature of United Way of Buffalo and Erie County’s recent giving is the scale of donor-designated support, which appears at the top of its grant list across 2023, 2024, and 2025. Alongside that recurring flow, the foundation has also made large supplemental allocations tied to community response, including a $1,728,632 grant to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo for Buffalo Together community response and community resilience blizzard response work. That combination points to a funder that moves between donor-directed allocations and targeted community investment. The organization supports health and human services in Buffalo and Erie County through program funding, competitive RFPs, emergency food and shelter support, and strategic areas such as Healthy Community, Financial Security, and Youth Opportunity. Its recent grants include repeated support for Buffalo Public Schools Foundation’s United Way Works, Via – Visually Impaired Advancement’s WNY 211, BestSelf Behavioral Health, and Belmont Housing Resources for WNY. The grant history also shows funding for housing stability, food stamp outreach, education improvement, and youth services, with most dollars landing in Buffalo-based organizations.
What United Way of Buffalo and Erie County Funds
Within financial security work, United Way of Buffalo and Erie County funded Jericho Road Community Health Center with $150,000 for targeted food stamp outreach, showing direct support for benefits access and anti-poverty services. Housing stability is another clear theme: Belmont Housing Resources for WNY received $149,385 for family housing stability case management in 2025, following $128,411 the year before for the same service line. Education-related funding appears through federal grant support and school-linked programming. In 2025, the foundation gave $546,451 to Buffalo Public Schools Foundation for United Way Works, and earlier it awarded $199,822 to YWCA of WNY for Closing the Gap Clevehill under a Fund for the Improvement of Education federal grant. Youth opportunity also shows up in a $175,000 grant to Algonquin Sports for Kids, tying sports participation to the foundation’s youth-serving portfolio.
How United Way of Buffalo and Erie County Gives
United Way of Buffalo and Erie County’s typical grant size sits at a p25 of $20,900, a median of $28,000, and a p75 of $73,000. The distribution includes both recurring operating support and much larger donor-designated and supplemental awards, so the median is far below the biggest checks. The recent grant list shows repeated multi-year support to the same organizations, including annual funding to Buffalo Public Schools Foundation, Via – Visually Impaired Advancement, BestSelf Behavioral Health, and Belmont Housing Resources for WNY. The foundation is a regular funder rather than a DAF, and it does not make program-related investments. It also accepts unsolicited proposals through its 2025 Request for Proposal process for nonprofit 501(c)(3) agencies in Erie County.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$7.7M
Total Assets
$29M
Total Revenue
$10.9M
Total Expenses
$13.2M
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $21K and $73K, with a median of $28K.
25th Percentile
$21K
Median
$28K
75th Percentile
$73K
Geographic Reach
Local9 states funded
About 95% of grants go to recipients in NY.
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
Leadership
THOMAS WRINN
Accepts unsolicited proposals
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