Dow Briggs, MD, the Executive Vice President of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama (BCBS), who also serves as United Way of Central Alabama’s (UWCA) 2023 Campaign Chair, spent many years in medical practice before moving into management at BCBS.
As he transitioned further into leadership, Briggs felt the need to, somehow, once again be more directly involved in human services. For many years, BCBS has maintained a strong partnership with UWCA. And that presented a perfect opportunity for Briggs to work on the ground level again.
Much of UWCA’s work feels “a lot like taking care of patients,” Briggs said.
“I was a hands-on doc, in a hospital taking care of patients all the time in an emergency room,” he said at the recent UWCA Young Philanthropists Society (YPS) campaign kickoff, “and United Way was a much more upfront, tangible way for me to be connected.”
Briggs was a featured speaker at the YPS event that coincided with UWCA’s 2023 campaign kickoff. YPS is a group of young professionals in Central Alabama who contribute $1,000 or more to UWCA annually, network with peers and local leaders and often volunteer as a group on community projects.
The kickoff at Paper Doll was a perfect example of the networking opportunities YPS gives its members, with representatives from Pack Health, YWCA Central Alabama, Protective and other local organizations in attendance.
For Briggs, though, involvement in UWCA means bringing support to areas of need, specifically pointing to initiatives such as the Fairfield Community Schools strategy, through which United Way is supporting education and opportunity in the city.
“You take the best of what United Way has, their partner agencies, communities that we live in, the companies that surround the six-county area,” Briggs said. “You pull all the best of what you have, and you take it to those areas that don’t have it.”
To learn more and get involved, visit https://www.uwca.org/leadership-giving-societies/young-philanthropists-society.