Golie takes over as director of United Way

After more than a year without, United Way of Hill County has a new executive director in Danielle Golie, who started early this month.

Golie, who was born in Arizona but moved to the Hi-Line when she was 5, was Hill County's public health director for more than a decade until she left in 2015, succeeded by the current director Kim Berg.

After that, she said, she moved to Denver where she began learning about traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, but she moved back to Havre a few years ago looking for a job where she could help the community she grew up in.

"I love Havre," she said, "I think it's a great place to live. The people are amazing here, but we have our challenges."

She said she was looking for a job in a leadership position where she could make an impact in the local community, but wasn't really thinking about United Way specifically until one of the organization's board members mentioned the position was open.

Golie said she worked with United Way while she was with the health department, but being able to work in the organization has provided an opportunity to see how the organization works.

United Way is an organization that focuses on improving health, education and financial stability in communities around the world including Hill County.

Golie said the organization used to focus primarily on coordinating fundraising efforts around the area to help various causes, but since fundraising has become a lot easier over the years, most organizations can do it on their own and United Way has shifted its focus.

Today, she said, United Way focuses more on supporting individual projects designed to maximize positive impacts on the community, which is something she's passionate about.

During her time in health care, she said, when addressing someone's health, physical, mental or spiritual, she often saw people who would be temporarily stabilized and returned to their lives, only for them to be back soon after because the problems they face weren't fully addressed.

This made her passionate about prevention work which led her to the health department and now she has similar motivations for joining United Way, she said.

She said United Way helps address people's needs in a way that they can support themselves and their families, especially children.

Golie said if children and, by extension, their families, are not supported then the world will never get better, which is why she feels so strongly about addressing their needs, whether that's helping them find ways to better manage money, increase income, or whatever else they need.

For now, she said, things at United Way under her leadership will continue more or less as they have, but the organization will soon be constructing a long-range strategic plan that will outline how best they can address the needs of the community.

She said the organization has been holding up well during the time that it was without a director, partially because its former director, Delonna Malone, is still on the board of the organization helping it stay in operation.

But, Golie said, now that they have a director, she hopes her experience in project management and strategic planning can help the organization be as good as it can be.

She said they are getting applications ready for new and existing local partners and she's hoping to recruit more to help with their impact projects.

She said they've also got their big fundraising campaign coming up in the f-all along with their yearly crab boil Sept. 30.