Achieve Escambia will continue its work as part of United Way of West Florida
By Sandra Averhart
July 18, 2025 at 6:27 AM CDT
A new chapter is beginning for Achieve Escambia. After about five years as a stand-alone non-profit, the area’s cradle-to-career collective impact initiative is transitioning its core work back to the United Way of West Florida (UWWF).
Support Local Stories. Support Public Media.
In partnership with the business community, Achieve Escambia began as an educational enterprise of United Way when it launched in 2016, according to United Way’s President and CEO Laura Gilliam.
“It made sense for United Way to serve that role administratively, providing some staff support,” she said. “Because education is a focus area, it was then and still continues to be a focus area for United Way, it just made a lot of sense to take on that role.”
Gilliam said even though Achieve Escambia will again operate under the umbrella of United Way, there will be no significant changes in the mission or work of the community-based organization.
“It’s not going to disappear. It’s not going to get buried somewhere in the other work that we’re doing,” said Gilliam. “It’s going to be very visible, very active in the community. So, I think that’s very important for the community to understand, it’s not going away.”
Ruthie Noel (left) is executive director of Achieve Escambia, which will be transitioned back to United Way of West Florida led by President & CEO Laura Gilliam (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Ruthie Noel, executive director of Achieve Escambia, said she’s excited about this next iteration of the collective impact initiative, adding that their many community meetings, involving many of the same key stakeholders, showed it was time to look for a more efficient way to get the work done.
“What kind of bubbled to the top as the part that we do play in the community, it just seemed to overlap a lot with the very good work going on at the United Way,” said Noel. “And, I’ll say this, a big piece of the mission of Achieve Escambia is to align our community resources and a big part of that is reducing duplication.”
Over the past decade, Achieve Escambia has had some successes.
The Achieve Dashboard, a collaborative effort of Achieve Escambia, Achieve Healthy EscaRosa, and the Haas Center at the University at West Florida, is a free, easy-to-use tool that will allow users to understand how key factors result in quality-of-life for individuals and the community.
Achieve boasts establishment of the Local College Access Network (LCAN), which has led to increases in completion of financial aid applications and enrollment at the postsecondary level.
Addressing early learning is Achieve’s Kindergarten Readiness Collective Action Network (KCAN), which uses research and local data to develop strategies to prepare more children for school.
“I think one of the best successes that’s come out of Achieve Escambia, and particularly for kindergarten readiness, is the establishment of the Help Me Grow Escambia model,” Noel said of the initiative aimed at enhancing early identification of developmental delays. “Not only did we bring Help Me Grow to our community, so that the diagnostic part can happen. There’s also an expansion in our model here, locally, that provides direct-intervention services for the kids who maybe didn’t meet the diagnostic criteria, but still need help.”
And because of limited funds to pay for local programs, such as Help Me Grow, to improve the lives of children and families, Achieve Escambia led the 2020 campaign to establish a Children’s Services Council — in this case, a voter-approved taxing authority known as Escambia Children’s Trust.
While Achieve Escambia’s public profile dimmed a bit after the ECT was created, Noel maintains that the non-profit is still active and continues to have a supportive role to play.
“Many of them that are successful and have seen really great outcomes, those Children’s Services Councils do have a non-profit counterpart that does convening work and measurement work and, sometimes, provides technical assistance for the contract application process,” Noel said.
United Way of West Florida will assume coordination of the KCAN, the LCAN, and the Data Action Group. Staff support, communications, and community engagement will transition by this fall.
Gilliam explained that it’s a good time for Achieve Escambia to come back to United Way.
“The organization still raises money and provides funds to agency programs,” she said. “But we do a lot of other work related to convening, related to identifying gaps, and is there a way that we can fill that gap ourselves or can we find an entity that will do that.”
There also will be a level of continuity, as Gilliam has served over the years on Achieve’s Leadership Council and Board of Directors.
“So I’ve never really lost that connection or that kind of understanding of the work, and I think that also helps with this,” said Gilliam. “It’s not like there was this big gap of time, where I did not have this connection with it.”
However, Gilliam will be looking to replace Noel, who’s leaving her current post as executive director of Achieve Escambia to take a new job.
Support Local Stories. Support Public Media.
In partnership with the business community, Achieve Escambia began as an educational enterprise of United Way when it launched in 2016, according to United Way’s President and CEO Laura Gilliam.
“It made sense for United Way to serve that role administratively, providing some staff support,” she said. “Because education is a focus area, it was then and still continues to be a focus area for United Way, it just made a lot of sense to take on that role.”
Gilliam said even though Achieve Escambia will again operate under the umbrella of United Way, there will be no significant changes in the mission or work of the community-based organization.
“It’s not going to disappear. It’s not going to get buried somewhere in the other work that we’re doing,” said Gilliam. “It’s going to be very visible, very active in the community. So, I think that’s very important for the community to understand, it’s not going away.”
Ruthie Noel (left) is executive director of Achieve Escambia, which will be transitioned back to United Way of West Florida led by President & CEO Laura Gilliam (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Ruthie Noel, executive director of Achieve Escambia, said she’s excited about this next iteration of the collective impact initiative, adding that their many community meetings, involving many of the same key stakeholders, showed it was time to look for a more efficient way to get the work done.
“What kind of bubbled to the top as the part that we do play in the community, it just seemed to overlap a lot with the very good work going on at the United Way,” said Noel. “And, I’ll say this, a big piece of the mission of Achieve Escambia is to align our community resources and a big part of that is reducing duplication.”
Over the past decade, Achieve Escambia has had some successes.
The Achieve Dashboard, a collaborative effort of Achieve Escambia, Achieve Healthy EscaRosa, and the Haas Center at the University at West Florida, is a free, easy-to-use tool that will allow users to understand how key factors result in quality-of-life for individuals and the community.
Achieve boasts establishment of the Local College Access Network (LCAN), which has led to increases in completion of financial aid applications and enrollment at the postsecondary level.
Addressing early learning is Achieve’s Kindergarten Readiness Collective Action Network (KCAN), which uses research and local data to develop strategies to prepare more children for school.
“I think one of the best successes that’s come out of Achieve Escambia, and particularly for kindergarten readiness, is the establishment of the Help Me Grow Escambia model,” Noel said of the initiative aimed at enhancing early identification of developmental delays. “Not only did we bring Help Me Grow to our community, so that the diagnostic part can happen. There’s also an expansion in our model here, locally, that provides direct-intervention services for the kids who maybe didn’t meet the diagnostic criteria, but still need help.”
And because of limited funds to pay for local programs, such as Help Me Grow, to improve the lives of children and families, Achieve Escambia led the 2020 campaign to establish a Children’s Services Council — in this case, a voter-approved taxing authority known as Escambia Children’s Trust.
While Achieve Escambia’s public profile dimmed a bit after the ECT was created, Noel maintains that the non-profit is still active and continues to have a supportive role to play.
“Many of them that are successful and have seen really great outcomes, those Children’s Services Councils do have a non-profit counterpart that does convening work and measurement work and, sometimes, provides technical assistance for the contract application process,” Noel said.
United Way of West Florida will assume coordination of the KCAN, the LCAN, and the Data Action Group. Staff support, communications, and community engagement will transition by this fall.
Gilliam explained that it’s a good time for Achieve Escambia to come back to United Way.
“The organization still raises money and provides funds to agency programs,” she said. “But we do a lot of other work related to convening, related to identifying gaps, and is there a way that we can fill that gap ourselves or can we find an entity that will do that.”
There also will be a level of continuity, as Gilliam has served over the years on Achieve’s Leadership Council and Board of Directors.
“So I’ve never really lost that connection or that kind of understanding of the work, and I think that also helps with this,” said Gilliam. “It’s not like there was this big gap of time, where I did not have this connection with it.”
However, Gilliam will be looking to replace Noel, who’s leaving her current post as executive director of Achieve Escambia to take a new job.