United Community Services Community Information Service Records

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The United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit has its origins in the establishment of the Detroit Community Union in 1917. The Union was reorganized into the Council of Social Agencies of Metropolitan Detroit in 1932, and merged with the Detroit Community Chest in 1951 to become the United Community Services (UCS). UCS operated alongside the United Way for Southeastern Michigan (United Foundation until 1989), which was primarily a fundraising organization. They merged to form the United Way Community Services in 1995, which merged with the United Way for Oakland County to become the United Way for Southeastern Michigan in 2005. UCS was an umbrella organization for a wide range of social welfare agencies in the Metropolitan Detroit area, and sought to promote social services (including child care, family, health, recreation, and community planning) through the centralized planning, coordinating, and budgeting of those agencies. The Community Information Service (CIS) Department, formerly known as the Central Services Department, was established to assist the community in making more effective use of health, welfare, and recreational resources. It served as a central source for authentic information to direct members of the community to relevant social service agencies, by the use of telephone, correspondence, or in person visits. The department also published social service resource directories and oversaw the Central Volunteer Bureau. Funding for the CIS came from the United Foundation’s annual Tribute Fund Campaign.

The United Community Services Community Information Service Records consist of correspondence, minutes, reports and scrapbooks from CIS and its precursor, the Central Services Department. The materials demonstrate the functions of the CIS, including its efforts to connect members of the community with social service resources, its centralized administration of UCS’ volunteer efforts, and its involvement in Tribute Fund campaigning. The collection also contains statistical data about the services provided by participating UCS agencies, mostly in the Social Statistics Project series.

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