philanthropy

A philanthropic gift of $6 million should mean a significant bump in the number of kids who will benefit from one-on-one adult mentoring through Friends of the Children.

  The coronavirus pandemic has brought about perhaps the strangest inflection point in the history of youth and family services. Many providers are challenged to operate effectively in an environment where in-person contact is shunned, but in the not-too-distant future are likely to experience unprecedented demand for help as the nation comes to grip with an economic recession.

Some of America’s largest investors in social impact issues got together and mulled over the question: What do organizations involved in social impact work have the hardest time getting money to do?

The Family First Prevention Services Act paves the way for more federal investment in programs with a solid base of evidence of helping children and families. But this exposes an elephant in the room when it comes to child welfare: there aren’t many models that fit the bill.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative – known widely in the field simply as JDAI – is the longest-running philanthropic reform effort in juvenile justice. And in commencing this year’s JDAI conference for those involved in it across hundreds of sites in the country, the man in charge of it acknowledged that the name was no longer accurate.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) operates the largest child welfare agency in the nation. With this comes a great responsibility, and I am extremely grateful to work each day with some of the most dedicated and passionate people in the child welfare arena.

Charitable giving by individuals declined sharply in 2018, and advocates in the human service sector fear the reason behind it suggests a permanent downward adjustment in donor giving. Giving by individuals totaled $292 billion in 2018, a 3.4 percent decline when adjusted for inflation, according to the annual report by Giving USA.

A group of foundations and other grant makers are backing a small investment in one of the Trump administration’s favorite workforce ventures: apprenticeships. The Ballmer Group, Annie E. Casey Foundation and several other funders will back a $1 million grant to connect young people to career training opportunities. 

The New York-based Doris Duke Charitable Foundation invested nearly $6 million this month aimed at bolstering leadership in the child well-being sector. “Effective and diverse social sector leadership is critical for ending intergenerational cycles of poverty and persistently inequitable outcomes for families and children,” said Lola Adedokun, program director for child well-being at the foundation.