2022 Annual Snapshot showcases the impact of building more equitable systems

Contact: 
Kathy Reincke, kar@wkkf.org
269-969-2079

Today, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) released its 2022 annual snapshot – featuring stories, videos, research from the field and editorials on the past year’s work led by grantees, investees and partners working in communities. The snapshot is embedded exclusively on Every Child Thrives, the foundation’s digital storytelling platform that highlights the efforts of WKKF grantees and community partners to realize a more equitable future for children, families and communities.

The annual snapshot details more than $298 million in new grant commitments, which includes more than $59 million of the foundation’s social impact bond commitment that was announced in Oct. 2021. Almost 40% of the foundation’s grantmaking focused on national efforts to change the systems that limit equitable opportunities for children and families. Nearly 60% of WKKF’s grantmaking supported the foundation’s U.S. priority places of Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans, as well as Chiapas and the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and the central and southwest regions of Haiti.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, WKKF supported organizations with more than $1.17 billion to address urgent needs in communities around the world.

“This past year has led many of us to be hopeful that we’re moving beyond the most dire impacts of the pandemic – yet despite this, grantees and communities continue to struggle with the consequences of increasing inequities,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, WKKF president and CEO. “Changing the systems that define our lives – education, housing, healthcare, transportation, justice and the economy – so that they work for all children, all families and all communities, will require bold, hand-in-hand, collective action.”

At the heart of this year’s annual snapshot, Making Systems Work for Every Child, Every Family, Every Community, the foundation describes how racial equity and racial healing intersect with driving change in systems and structures within and around communities.

“Racial healing helps build trust among people and restores communities to wholeness, so they can work together to change the systems and structures to affirm the inherent value of all people,” said Tabron. “Racial healing isn’t just important; it plays an essential role at the very heart of building racial equity.”

Visit the complete annual snapshot, the Kellogg Foundation’s 2022 financial statements and more highlights of WKKF grantmaking and investments. The Annual Snapshot is available in English, Haitian Creole and Spanish.

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The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.

The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti.