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More Casey Initiatives

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Selected Program Profiles

The Casey Foundation's primary approach to grantmaking focuses on making multi-year, multi-site commitments that enable us to invest in long-term strategies and partnerships that strengthen families and communities. In this section, we discuss a complementary approach through which we explore ways to support work that is consistent with our mission, but outside our major strategic initiatives.

Through this approach, the Foundation has made "bets" on promising people, ideas and organizations. Profiled are thirteen grantees where these "bets" have paid off, sometimes in substantial return on the investment and sometimes more modestly. For the Foundation, these grants not only carry the implicit reward of backing successful innovation, but also allow staff to be creative and offer a chance to consider areas that could eventually be added to our priorities.

Briefly, the grantees are:

  • Amachi: Using the Big Brothers/Big Sisters model, Amachi matches mentors from inner city congregations with children whose parents are incarcerated. Casey helped the program grow from 2 to 22 sites, enough to attract major federal funding for further expansion. Since Amachi's founding, more than 100,000 children have been served in Amachi-affiliated or
    -inspired programs.
  • Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning: This Baltimore organization works to assure that children are born into and grow up in homes free of preventable health threats. Activities to which Casey has contributed have helped reduce the number of Maryland children with lead in their blood by 94%. Eight of the Coalition's protocols now are mandated for all recipients of certain U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants.
  • Dolly Parton's Imagination Library: Another program to encourage reading, Imagination Library mails a new book to participating children every month from birth to age 5. A Casey-financed study of the program, then operating in a handful of places, helped it spread to well over 700 communities in 43 states and Canada. More than 4.5 million books were distributed in 2007.
  • Generations of Hope: This organization creates intergenerational neighborhoods designed to support a group of families adopting children from foster care. Seniors in the community volunteer as surrogate "grandparents." In the pilot site, families have adopted almost 60 children, many of whom were considered hard-to-place. Casey provided funding to document the effort, as a step toward replication.
  • Grace Hill's Member Organized Resource Exchange (MORE): MORE members who help others in the community earn an alternative currency called Time Dollars, which they can use to "buy" goods and services that might otherwise be beyond their limited incomes. Since 1991, neighbors have performed over 670,000 hours of service which, calculated at minimum wage, would be worth $3.5 million. Casey funding helped Grace Hill Settlement House host over 260 groups interested in learning about the program.
  • Institute for Justice's Clinic on Entrepreneurship:  Supervised by experienced attorneys, law students have provided intensive, extended assistance to help more than 150 low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs create or expand a business. Most businesses are minority-owned and have employees besides the owner. Casey has provided core operating support since the Clinic was created at the University of Chicago Law School.
  • ONE LA-IAF: Under rejeuvenated Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) leadership, over 100 dues-paying institutional members and a host of community leaders are working together in a broad-based coalition to address the quality of education and other concerns. Long a supporter of IAF community engagement, education reform and workforce development activities, the Casey Foundation is providing modest core support to help bring these strategies to Los Angeles.
  • Reach Out and Read: Through ROR, pediatricians give children new books at each well-child visit and encourage parents to read with their children. Casey Foundation grants helped build the organizational capacity needed to expand to over 3,500 U.S sites and seven other countries, reaching more than 3 million children a year.
  • ROAD: Clinical depression, which may be triggered by stress from poverty or trauma like domestic violence, affects mothers' ability to work and can jeopardize their children's social and emotional development. ROAD is a grassroots non-clinical approach to treatment that combines peer support, education and social activisim to help overcome the sense of isolation and restore participants' confidence and capacity to change their situation. Participants are taking steps like getting a job, returning to school, and seeking treatment for substance abuse.
  • SEED: A SEED School is a public boarding school located in an urban community that prepares students from challenging circumstances for success in college and the professional world. Parents and the community are actively involved. Over 80% of SEED students entering 9th grade graduate from SEED, and SEED projects that a majority of its graduates will finish college within six years of high school graduation. Most will be the first in the family with a college degree. Casey funding during the formative years of the pilot site provided a bridge until the school reached financial sustainability.
  • Stand for Children: The brainchild of an innovator then in his early 20's, Stand for Children mobilizes citizens to press for action to assure "every child a fair chance in life." Sustained but modest Casey funding has provided stability, while allowing the organization to evolve as an authentic grassroots voice. Since 1999, Stand for Children has played a decisive role in securing over $1.7 billion in public funding for schools and other children's programs.
  • Street to Work: Street to Work was a pilot diversion program that helped first-time, non-violent offenders arrested for selling small quantities of drugs secure legitimate jobs, avoid further involvement with the justice system, and strengthen involvement with their children. Its successor, Back on Track, now is a permanent program in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. Fewer than 10% of participants have re-offended, compared with a rate of over 50% that would have been expected had they been imprisoned. Small grants and consultant subsidies from Casey helped launch Street to Work.
  • Time Dollar Institute (now TimeBanks USA): An alternative currency called a Time Dollar is earned by providing service to others and can be used, in turn, to "purchase" a variety of goods and services. This meets concrete needs, affirms the value of community members' talents and contributions, and renews and sustains community vitality. Casey support to this organization, which promotes the concept, has helped assure that technical assistance is available to assist those interested in pursuing Time Dollar efforts. Today, there are more than 100 recognized Time Bank programs in the United States, as well as Time Banks in twenty-six other countries.