United for Brownsville
United for Brownsville (UB) is a community-driven Brooklyn non-profit that works to close gaps in access to essential services across health care, education, and housing that disproportionately affect their community.
Brownsville, New York City
Brownsville, New York City
United for Brownsville has spent years building the infrastructure for community-driven change in Brooklyn.
They convene families, healthcare providers, schools, and social services around a shared goal: closing gaps in access to essential services across housing, early childhood education, maternal health, and child welfare. Now, UB represents one of broadest cross-sections of community voices in the neighborhood.
As part of FCP’s Starter Dashboard Pilot Cohort, UB worked with FCP and North Arrow to build a community dashboard covering the three areas central to their work: Cradle-to-Post Secondary, Family Wellbeing, and Housing. The dashboard tracks how Brownsville fares against city averages and comparable neighborhoods, giving anyone in the community a clear, accessible picture of conditions on the ground.
For UB, the dashboard functions as a digital version of their collaborative framework: a public record of what the organization has said matters, and a way to measure whether progress is happening. David Harrington described the effect: “Partnership with FCP has pushed us to clarify which indicators matter most, align them with our long-term strategy, and anticipate the supports residents will need to confidently use the dashboard themselves.”
UB’s Family Advisory Board and Provider Action Team are now using the dashboard in regular meetings, engaging with the data, surfacing questions, and identifying priorities that will shape the organization’s direction in the coming year.
What those conversations have revealed is a need that goes beyond access. People who engage with data regularly develop comfort and confidence with it. UB is planning a series of community conversations and data walks over the next year to build exactly that. The ongoing engagement has also surfaced a structural need: dedicated staff capacity to support the advisory councils, capture what emerges from those conversations, and make sure community insights shape organizational priorities.
UB entered the FCP cohort as an organization that already understood the value of data. The work now is making sure that understanding is shared by everyone who has a stake in what the data shows. In Brownsville, that’s the whole community.
"Partnership with FCP has pushed us to clarify which indicators matter most, align them with our long-term strategy, and anticipate the supports residents will need to confidently use the dashboard themselves."
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