The records are arranged in eight series: Administrative Records, Minutes, Reports and Studies, Special Projects and Programs, Legal Files, Community Center Subject Files, Clippings, and Scrapbooks. The records are incomplete for both the UNC and its member centers, especially between the years 1955 to 1968. There are also no records between 1995 and the organization's dissolution in 1997.
The Administrative Records are arranged chronologically and contain small files of information dating between 1968 and 1989. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) correspondence contains only one year of letters between the UNC and a funding organization. The file corresponds to the Board of Directors and Committee Meeting Minutes for 1988 and 1989 where another small amount of CDBG correspondence exists for that time period as well as in the 1987 minutes.
The Minutes are divided into three categories, Annual Meeting Minutes, Board of Directors and Committee Meeting Minutes, and Center Directors' Meeting Minutes, and are arranged chronologically therein. The Annual Meeting Minutes run from 1962-1968 and 1986-1993. Included with the minutes of these meetings are correspondence and annual reports. Governance decisions including modification of by-laws and elections of officers took place at the annual meetings. The Board of Directors and Committee Meeting Minutes comprise the bulk of the UNC material. Committees included are the budget, executive, funding, membership, personnel and planning committees but not every one appears every year. Incorporated in these files are agendas, center reports, financial materials, correspondence, and grant applications and date from 1949 to 1994 with the bulk being from 1988 to 1991. Materials from 1954-1968, 1974-1979, 1983, and 1995-1997 are not included. The Center Directors' Meeting Minutes, covering 1969 to 1971, are from the files of Jerry Glaeve, a director of Neighborhood House during the 1970s.
The Reports and Studies date from 1949 to 1991 and are arranged chronologically. The 1949 report is the original report requested by Neighborhood House in which the formation of the UNC was recommended. The files of the structure study committee document the process the UNC undertook to study and reorganize itself from 1970 to 1971. The subsequent critiques, studies and planning documents illustrate not only the constant organizational evaluation undertaken by the UNC to provide better service, but also show some of the problems, other than financial, that plagued the organization.
The Special Projects and Programs series is arranged chronologically. The reports of Camp Rotary from 1962 to 1973 contain camping studies that led to the organization of the camp in 1964 as well as yearly summaries of the youth camps. The reports contain social demographics and detailed information on the interaction of the children who attended the camp. Last names of juvenile attendees have been censored. The Camp Rotary correspondence is between Henry Behnke, the Madison Rotary Club contact, and the UNC and contains information on the use and physical condition of the camp. The Northeast Neighborhood Project contains proposals and surveys that cite a need for a community center in northeast Madison.
The Legal Files are arranged chronologically. The contract is with the city of Madison for a piece of land near Neighborhood House. The Dane County Mental Health lease and waiver also contains correspondence that documents the lease of office space by the UNC to this organization. The file on Henry Pitt (executive director of the UNC from 1972 until he was terminated in 1976 for misappropriation of funds) contains legal documents and correspondence pertaining to suits and counter suits filed by the UNC and Pitt over salary and defamation of character. Sally Schroeder's legal suit and the Madison Independent Workers Union file contain information on staff employment practices. The legal suit between South Madison and McKee, (a contractor who built a shed at the South Madison Neighborhood Center) documents the role the UNC played in the legal matters of a member community center.
The Community Center Subject Files are arranged alphabetically by community center name and chronologically therein. The files are not inclusive and there are no records for the Vera Court Neighborhood Center and Wexford Ridge Neighborhood Association though they are mentioned in the later files of the Atwood Community Center. Examples of materials included in the subject files are correspondence, advertisements for programs, minutes of center meetings, building leases, center histories and studies, newsletters, reports, and financial summaries. The files that exist for Neighborhood House and the South Madison Neighborhood Center during the 1960s may contain information about the UNC that does not exist in the Annual, Board of Directors and Committee, or the Center Directors' Meeting Minutes.
The Clippings are arranged chronologically and are taken from Madison-area newspapers. While the date span is quite long, only clippings from 1961-1967, 1971-1972, 1976-1977, 1979-1980, and 1989 are included. The clippings document the actions taken and programs sponsored by the UNC and its member community centers as well as provide information about the UNC from 1961-1967, a time period that is not covered in the series of minutes.
The Scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, programs, and flyers for programs sponsored by the UNC and its member community centers. There are two volumes, the first dating from 1980-1982 and the second from 1983-1985. Similarly to the loose clippings, the scrapbooks document the activities of the UNC and its member community centers during a period of time that is not well documented in the series of minutes.
