Service Opportunities

VISTAs in the Piedmont offers individuals the opportunity to gain professional experience in the nonprofit sector as they spend a year dedicated to service.

The community project is a unique aspect of the V.I.P. program that allows VISTAs to work together as a team. Each member spends 10% of their service participating in a supplemental project designed to foster collaboration and problem-solving for community-wide issues related to financial stability or behavioral health.  The VISTA members gather one half day each week to share the different perspectives and experiences gained through their work at their individual sites and work together on their community projects.

Accepting applications for the 2020 - 2021 service year beginning March 1, 2020.

About United Way of the Piedmont:
United Way of the Piedmont is a private, nonprofit organization governed by a local board of volunteers.
Our services cover Spartanburg, Cherokee, and Union Counties.
 MISSION: Connect, engage and inspire people to transform our community. 
VISION: Live united as an educated, financially stable, and healthy community.

Commitment to Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity
United Way of the Piedmont, the VISTAs in the Piedmont program, and all service sites are committed to diversity, inclusion, and equity. We are committed to engaging VISTA members in our collective work without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity and expression, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, familial status, or socio-economic status. Should you require any accommodations to complete the application process or successfully complete a service year, please notify Heather Lother, VP of Engagement, at hlother@uwpiedmont.org or 864-707-2748 directly.

2020 - 2021 Service Opportunities

VISTAs in our program serve at one of several community sites focusing on one or more of the following capacity-building activities:
  • Marketing and social media management 
  • Fundraising through events, donor development, and grants
  • Developing programs to increase financial stability and access to healthcare
  • Building partnerships in the community
  • Recruiting and managing volunteers​
  • Program assessment and management
2020 - 2021 Sites
AccessHealth  Spartanburg
Program & Engagement VISTA
Help improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs for under-insured, low-income adults by increasing awareness & community engagement. The VISTA will expand current communication efforts, increase efficiency of the client enrollment process, identify gaps in care and available community assets and resources, and secure additional funding for AccessHealth Spartanburg (AHS).


Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Upstate
Match Program & Volunteer Engagement VISTA
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Upstate exists to improve young people academically, socially, and emotionally by focusing on education, prevention of high-risk behaviors and teaching life skills. The VISTA will help support this mission by helping to build and increase service capacity and helping to make quality improvements to provide enhanced services for the low-income youth and families served.


Children's Advocacy Center of Spartanburg, Cherokee, & Union Counties
Community Engagement VISTA
Help increase Children’s Advocacy Center of Spartanburg, Cherokee, and Union Counties’ (CAC) capacity to serve all children in need of CAC services by increasing community engagement and awareness, developing new fundraising initiatives, and improving CAC's current system of volunteer management. The VISTA will expand the current social media and website outreach, develop and implement new fundraising strategies, and develop a volunteer calendar to further the impact of CAC volunteers.


Children's Cancer Partners of the Carolinas
Community and Volunteer Outreach VISTA
Help improve Access to Care for children battling cancer by engaging more volunteers, building peer support through peer-family events, generating awareness through the CCP Kidz in Lids program and recognizing supporters through social media outreach all to ensure children access to care, and families not falling into the downward spiral of poverty.


City of Spartanburg
Community Development VISTA
Position description coming soon!

EMERGE Family Therapy Center & Teaching Clinic
Community Engagement VISTA
Help improve health outcomes of low-income, underinsured children, adults and families by building capacity of EMERGE Family Therapy Center and Teaching Clinic to provide increasingly more affordable mental and behavioral health care to individuals, couples and families who could not otherwise access mental health care services. The VISTA will increase community engagement by expanding communication efforts, managing a program of volunteer involvement, and communicating the story of EMERGE through a variety of processes (writing press releases, capturing data outcomes, building alumni connections, etc.)

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Greer Relief 
Community Outreach & Development VISTA
Provide program sustainability by cultivating and promoting the RENEW (Reaching Every Neighbor Every Way) program to low-income individuals and families, with the goal of increasing participation and attendance. The VISTA will also build support for the RENEW program, aid in the development of a small event, promote growth of current events with the goal of raising enough funds to hire a Stability Navigator to provide long-term stability for the program.

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​Middle Tyger Community Center 
Financial Stability Program & Engagement VISTA
Help ensure that the families Middle Tyger Community Center (MTCC) serves are offered opportunities, support, and resources that help them toward financial stability by recruiting and training volunteers, implementing the Getting Ahead program while developing community partnerships that builds the capacity for the continued sustainability of the program.


​ReGenesis Health Care
Community Health VISTA
The VISTA will work to develop a community health worker program, through research, collaboration with Nursing and Population Health teams, drafting a framework, and developing materials. The VISTA will conduct data analysis to identify areas of growth and challenge by creating, tracking, analyzing, and reporting on management data. The VISTA will also conduct community outreach to close health disparity gaps.
​Spartanburg Academic Movement
Collaborative Action & Engagement VISTA
Help support the upward economic mobility of children and families across Spartanburg County by strengthening academic achievement. This will be accomplished by engaging collaborative action groups to close equity gaps in three of the Spartanburg Academic Movement’s (SAM) learning outcomes: kindergarten readiness, high school graduation, and college enrollment.


​Spartanburg Housing Authority
Financial Self-Sufficiency Program VISTA
Help build capacity of the Spartanburg Housing Authority by creating neighborhood programs that enable access to community agencies and build opportunities for financial self-sufficiency. This VISTA will also identify capacity-building opportunities for volunteers and develop resources to help SHA residents move out of poverty.


Spartanburg Interfaith Housing Network (SPIHN)
Housing & Volunteer Resource VISTA
Help create affordable housing options for homeless individuals/families in order to reduce their period of homelessness. The Housing and Volunteer Advisor VISTA will also seek funds for transitional housing for SPIHN family homeless shelter, recruit new Host Churches (which provide nighttime shelter), develop volunteer recruitment and retention efforts for SPIHN shelter program and for the Spartanburg Opportunity Center (SOC) which is a day center for those in need and the unsheltered homeless. In addition, identify resource programs and funding opportunities for the SOC.


St. Luke's Free Medical Clinic
Volunteer & Data Collection VISTA
Help increase our capacity to provide quality healthcare to underserved Spartanburg County residents by streamlining our volunteer and data collection procedures. The VISTA will work to improve the Clinic’s volunteer program and patient and community health tracking systems according to new trends in technology and nonprofit best practices. These efforts will help ensure future staff can carry out our services more efficiently, allowing the Clinic to change more lives through access to healthcare.


The Bridge at Green Street
Housing & Homelessness Prevention VISTA
Position description coming soon!
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United Way of the Piedmont - Gifts in Kind Center
Member & Volunteer Experience VISTA
The Gifts in Kind Center (GIKC) takes donated consumer products from Walmart Corporation and redistributes them to nonprofits throughout the region who serve low-income individuals and families. The VISTA will focus on developing and improving processes and procedures to communicate with member agencies and partners. The VISTA will also focus on increasing the diversity of the volunteer corps that runs the facility, with a focus on procedures for adequate screening, training, and orientation of new volunteers without disrupting operations. The GIKC VISTA will also work to establish a volunteer leadership corps to provide day-to-day leadership and training to new or temporary volunteers.

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United Way of the Piedmont
Community Engagement VISTA
The VISTA member will support and increase the capacity of the United Way of the Piedmont (UWP) Engagement team to increase the number of community nonprofits implementing effective volunteer practices and increase the number of community volunteers successfully placed by UWP. The VISTA will develop volunteer opportunities to support UWP’s Financial Stability goals of increasing the number of financially self-sufficient individuals and families in the Spartanburg, Cherokee, & Union County communities

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United Way of the Piedmont
Donor Communications VISTA 
The VISTA member will support and increase the capacity of the Resource Development team to provide funding for United Way of the Piedmont’s work. The VISTA member will effectively engage donors to increase financial resources, document departmental processes and procedures to ensure sustainability, and contribute to social media marketing to build brand awareness to ensure UWP has resources to help eliminate poverty.


Upstate Warrior Solution
​Community Engagement VISTA
The VISTA will support Upstate Warrior Solution’s efforts to help increase financial stability among veterans (goal of ~40% of clients). They will increase engagement with partner organizations by using Canva to create event flyers and marketing templates for future use, post events to social media and newsletter to increase veteran engagement, noting effective practices and methods, and update UWS event calendar internally, as well as market and promote events to the community. The VISTA will assist UWS with optimizing volunteer and mentorship programs by researching, creating, implementing, and analyzing survey data. They will also increase UWS reach to veterans through partnerships with other service agencies by strengthening current partnerships from communication/marketing support. All while building new partnerships from making and tracking client referrals.