Strong Start is the Foundation’s proactive grantmaking strategy, launched in 2014, to ameliorate the impacts of poverty for young families by investing in efforts to ensure every child gets a strong start in life. In developing the strategy, we were heavily influenced by research from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University that shows that the brain is developed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood. Early experiences affect brain development and impact the trajectory of each person’s learning, health, and economic journeys over the life span. We were also informed by research by Dr. James Heckman, a Nobel prize winning economist at the University of Chicago, that has shown that the economic return on investment of social and educational interventions is strongest in the earliest years.
Armed with this information, the Foundation aims to target time and resources at interventions and programs that:
- Support the healthy development of the youngest children, prenatal through age 5, and their families
- Work to facilitate language, social-emotional, cognitive and physical development and mental wellness of young children
- Recognize that parents/primary caregivers are key to all outcomes, and that the parent-child relationship is central to any intervention
- Utilize program evaluation techniques to generate insight into what works and why
- Engage in advocacy to strengthen the field
- Participate in collaborations that might multiply the value of investments
The Strong Start strategy recognizes that both caregiving and the full array of social determinants of health impact infant and maternal health, early childhood development, and family resiliency. The strategy also places importance upon collaborative approaches that might extend the benefit of interventions and multiply the value of our investments.
Advocacy to influence the systems and conditions that impact the health and wellbeing of young children and their families is a key component of Strong Start. We recognize that public resources far outstrip those available through private philanthropy, and we support advocacy efforts to enact policies that promote the optimal development of children from the prenatal period to age five.
Strong Start is a proactive grantmaking approach, and we do not accept unsolicited proposals for funding through this strategy. Rather, we work collaboratively with organizations to identify community needs and develop fundable projects.
Resources
Harvard Center for the Developing Child: What is Early Childhood Development? A Guide to the Science
