With rising food costs, federal cuts targeting diversity and equity programs, pervasive immigration raids, and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, 2025 has undeniably been one hell of a year. Leaders have had to step up for people more than ever.

Among those answering the call has been Dr. Dawnté Early, president and CEO of United Way California Capital Region. Her continued efforts to advocate for the area’s most vulnerable, providing a vital shield against these collective crises, have earned Early distinction as The Sacramento OBSERVER’s 2025 Person of the Year.

Entering this year, Early centered the organization’s efforts to end area poverty by expanding educational services for youth and housing support across its five-county reach. Few could have predicted the profound challenges that would define 2025 and though Early entered it with a clear strategy, the year’s unpredictable nature quickly forced the organization to pivot.

People were losing their jobs and millions of Americans who rely on food stamps each month to eat had those benefits threatened as fallout from the President Donald Trump-led government shutdown.

“I don’t think any of us knew what to expect,” Early says. “Being in the service industry, being in the community advocacy space, I think that there are constantly unknowns. Part of the work that we do is seeing a fire and working towards it and trying to figure out, ‘How can you help?’ and in United Way’s case, ‘How can we help the kids? How can we help the youth? How can we help working families that need it the most?’”

The majority of the people the United Way serves can be classified as “the working poor.”

“The pressure that continues to be put on them has just increased in 2025,” Early adds.

When the “chaos” began, Early began doubling down on the United Way’s mission to end poverty by addressing widespread hunger.

“Food insecurity, which was already a struggle for the populations that we serve, has gotten even worse,” Early says. “Inflation and just simply rising costs of food and that folks are already living on the edge, make it even harder for the kids and families of those kids that we serve.”

The combination of the recent government shutdown and cuts to SNAP benefits immediately impacted United Way’s clients, many of whom were left wondering how they’d get food. This increased pressure on local food banks, forced the United Way to “step up and do more.”

Through a partnership with the Sierra Health Foundation, the organization has launched a 

matching initiative over the holidays to support local food banks across Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado, and Amador counties. The goal is to raise $200,000 to $300,000 by encouraging “collective impact” from small-dollar donors to help meet the growing need, a need Early says hasn’t ceased since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early and Sierra Health Foundation President and CEO Chet Hewitt teamed up in November as their organizations provided $350,000 in emergency food aid grants to 13 nonprofits, churches, clinics and other community groups to distribute food to those who lost access to SNAP benefits. They’ve previously partnered in support of justice reform and the Black Child Legacy Campaign.

Hewitt, The OBSERVER’s 2015 Person of the Year, underscores the value of partnering with Early by invoking an African proverb.

Dr. Dawnté Early’s leadership has been heavily lauded. In November, she was among The OBSERVER’s inaugural Onyx 25 Awards recipients, recognized for her significant and impactful influence within the Sacramento region’s African American community. She was inducted into the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Centennial Business Hall of Fame in 2024. That same year, Dr. Early received a Women Who Mean Business award from the Sacramento Business Journal and was one of Comstock’s magazine’s Women in Leadership honorees. Under her leadership, United Way was named Nonprofit of the Year by the Sacramento Black Chamber of Commerce in 2023.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” he says. “For us, we’re in the business of trying to go far, having the most far-reaching impact as possible, and our partnerships with United Way leaders like Dawnté Early and others has allowed The Center and the Sierra Health Foundation to be part of some pretty tremendous work.”

Early has advocated for harnessing the power of collaboration throughout the year, with many of these pivotal discussions taking place through her active role as a board member of Valley Vision, a local civic leadership organization.

“As funding is decreasing at the state level and federal level, we’re coming together as a nonprofit network and trying as much as possible to bring our funds and our resources together, so that community members, and specifically kids and youth, are not falling through the cracks,” Early says.

Nonprofits are already stretched from “standing in the gaps for years,” she adds. 

“It’s going to make it almost impossible for them to continue to do those things and I think what we will see in the next year and two years from now are nonprofits having to close their doors and these safety nets slowly disappearing.”

A Helping Hand

A centerpiece of the United Way’s direct service to struggling locals remains its two guaranteed income programs. One gives $725 to Sacramento County families with children ages 5 and under in certain ZIP codes prone to interaction with the child welfare system. Another aids former foster youth attending Sacramento State and UC Davis. 

Early brought the first guaranteed income program to Sacramento in 2021, following a similar program in Stockton, led by the city’s first Black mayor, Michael Tubbs.

Data shows that participants in the local program are more resilient against unexpected costs of $400 or more than a control group. Six months after the inaugural local program ended, guaranteed income recipients remained more financially stable.

“People said they were able to feed themselves and pay rent,” Early says. “I would hazard a guess that they’re even more important in helping to fill in those gaps of potentially unexpected increases in food costs [and] unexpected changes in SNAP benefits.”

Beyond immediate relief, United Way’s guaranteed income programs empower participants with financial literacy, resulting in tangible, life-changing outcomes such as opening and maintaining bank accounts and securing essential loans.

“This is the only way that we’re going to be able to support people,” Early says. Under President Trump, there has been significant opposition to social impact programs, including guaranteed income, from conservative groups who deem them as “handouts” and question their necessity.

“These aren’t handouts,” Early counters. “These are hands up. “We’re giving them the resources that they need, giving them the tools that they need in order for them to secure financial stability for themselves, as well as their families.”

Leaning In 

In addition to her work with United Way, Early also serves on the West Sacramento City Council, a role she has held since 2021, when she became the first African American elected to the council. She served as mayor pro tem from March 2024-January 2025 and ran for mayor in November 2024. Early is taking time to consider her political future — her council seat is up in 2026 and the next mayor’s race is in 2028 — but she says her focus remains squarely on the United Way.

Early has advice for others leading during challenging circumstances.

“I would say pace yourself. We are at the start of what is going to be some very, very difficult times with our economy, with the changing landscape of where and how government is stepping in, and oftentimes nonprofits are the safety net. Nonprofits are the backstop to government and social services. We are going to need to lean on each other.”

Early admits she wasn’t initially taking her own advice.

“I’ve had some health challenges the past couple years and I think part of that was because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was saying yes a lot to the outside world and not yes to myself.”

Some of her success in serving others in 2025 can be credited to focusing internally. The former college basketball player is back in the gym after busy schedules kept her from her normal workouts.

“I schedule it. It is on my calendar and my team knows, if you want me to be the best version of me, I need to have some time for me too,” Early says.

“I’m feeling healthier than I have in a decade. These next few years, we’re all going to need to be strong. I see a space that United Way is going to have to step into and provide an expanded level of leadership, partnership and convening that we have not necessarily been doing the past couple years. 

“I don’t know what that looks like, but I envision that we’re going to be needed more than we have in quite some time and I want to make sure that United Way is ready to help however it can.”

The work is plenty, but Early says she’ll be doing it “as long as I’m breathing.”

“It is one of the things that brings me joy,” she says. “It’s one of my core values, which is being of service to others. I literally get happy being able to help someone else, so I’m in the right place.”

THE OBSERVER proudly salutes Dr. Dawnté Early as its 2025 Person of the Year.