Our Impact
At United Way of Horry County, we believe good intentions are not enough. Our community deserves solutions that work. That is why we are committed to measuring the impact of everything we do and ensuring that the programs and strategies we support lead to real, measurable improvements in people’s lives.
By focusing on outcomes rather than activities, we are able to track progress, learn what works, improve what does not, and hold ourselves accountable to the community we serve. This approach ensures that donor investments, community partnerships, and our collective efforts are making a meaningful difference.
To guide this work, United Way of Horry County uses Results-Based Accountability (RBA).
Results-Based Accountability (RBA) is a planning and evaluation framework developed by Mark Friedman, Director of the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over the past 20 years, many nonprofits and state agencies have found RBA to be a powerful and effective tool for improving community outcomes.
United Way of Horry County began utilizing this framework in our first Community Game Plan in 2022 and continues to refine and strengthen our RBA approach with the most recent Community Game Plan finalized in 2026.
Our commitment to RBA facilitates collaborative opportunities to:
• Identify shared community-wide goals related to each priority
• Establish population-level data indicators that guide our shared understanding of each priority and build a stronger collective understanding of community needs and opportunities
• Define strategies that have the potential to improve opportunities and outcomes related to each priority area
• Create shared performance measures that allow us to clearly measure and hold ourselves accountable for the impact being made to achieve our goals
RBA helps communities and organizations move from talking about problems to taking action to solve them through a data-driven decision-making process. It provides a straightforward, common-sense framework that engages partners, strengthens collaboration, and fosters a shared commitment to improving outcomes for everyone in Horry County.
By focusing on outcomes rather than activities, we are able to track progress, learn what works, improve what does not, and hold ourselves accountable to the community we serve. This approach ensures that donor investments, community partnerships, and our collective efforts are making a meaningful difference.
To guide this work, United Way of Horry County uses Results-Based Accountability (RBA).
Results-Based Accountability (RBA) is a planning and evaluation framework developed by Mark Friedman, Director of the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over the past 20 years, many nonprofits and state agencies have found RBA to be a powerful and effective tool for improving community outcomes.
United Way of Horry County began utilizing this framework in our first Community Game Plan in 2022 and continues to refine and strengthen our RBA approach with the most recent Community Game Plan finalized in 2026.
Our commitment to RBA facilitates collaborative opportunities to:
• Identify shared community-wide goals related to each priority
• Establish population-level data indicators that guide our shared understanding of each priority and build a stronger collective understanding of community needs and opportunities
• Define strategies that have the potential to improve opportunities and outcomes related to each priority area
• Create shared performance measures that allow us to clearly measure and hold ourselves accountable for the impact being made to achieve our goals
RBA helps communities and organizations move from talking about problems to taking action to solve them through a data-driven decision-making process. It provides a straightforward, common-sense framework that engages partners, strengthens collaboration, and fosters a shared commitment to improving outcomes for everyone in Horry County.
