Foundation for Child Development

For over 120 years, we’ve been a foundation for enriching the lives of young children. Operating at the intersection of research, policy, and practice, we seek out fresh ideas to support *all* children in reaching their full potential. We cultivate collaboration among diverse stakeholders, fund innovative initiatives, and support meaningful change. **Our Mission** is to harness the power of research to ensure that all young children benefit from early learning experiences that affirm their individual, family, and community assets, fortify them against harmful consequences arising from poverty, racism, prejudice, and discrimination, and strengthen their developmental potential. **Our Core Operating Principles** are reflected in our: - **Diversity:** We regard diversity as an asset for building a strong and productive society, thus we are committed to diversity on staff and board, through the grantees that we fund, and the children and families on which we focus. - **Partnership with grantees:** We approach our grantees as our partners in the pursuit of common goals, and view their work and knowledge as essential to our ongoing efforts to achieve shared goals on behalf of young children. - **Collaboration:** We join forces with families, schools, funders, nonprofits, researchers, businesses and policymakers to initiate respectful, thoughtful, and open dialogue and to leverage our resources. - **Effective grantmaking:** We value holding ourselves to high standards of grantmaking effectiveness, assessing our progress in meeting our goals, and adapting our grant-making strategies accordingly. - **Continuous improvement:** We view organizational improvement as an essential element of our work, and we constantly seek opportunities to adapt, design, and implement more effective, innovative, and efficient approaches. - **Transparency:** We are clear, open, and honest about our thinking, processes, and decision making, including what we are learning, how we assess performance and impact, and how we make funding decisions. - **Collegiality:** We value a workplace characterized by collaboration and teamwork. We are united by our shared belief in the mission and goals of the Foundation, and celebrate each other’s individual abilities and strengths in working toward our goals.