All across America, the United Way is building relationships, bringing together the public, non-profits and private sectors as community problem solvers to invest in system change strategies. In this process United Ways realized that they hold a unique community leadership position, which enables them to expand the sometimes-narrow economic and social power structures currently in place to include women of all backgrounds.

As research has shown there are two very different worlds of women in United States. On one hand, in this country, women control more than 51% of personal wealth; on the other hand, 65% of the poor in this country are adult women. Given this dichotomy, United Way has started a Women's Initiative-Calvert Women United for Change to bring these two worlds together and achieve measurable outcomes towards the empowerment of all women, whether they want to share their leadership, treasure and time for the betterment of their community or whether they struggle to improve their individual lives.