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Our strength resides in our roots. They connect the past with the present and the future. They anchor us against the elements and provide a foundation for growth, even amidst a changing landscape.
At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, everything we do is rooted in our founder’s charge, 94 years ago, to work toward “the health, happiness and well-being of children, without discrimination as to race, creed or geographical distribution.”
Our deep-seated commitment to helping communities build a more equitable world for all children sprang from these roots. That commitment has continued to branch in new directions in the decades since, through our work to foster racial healing across the diverse communities we serve.
Our roots also inform the work we take on with partners and fellows to fix the broken systems that prevent children and families from thriving. By partnering with communities, we nurture diverse ecosystems and sow the seeds for the future our children deserve.
That’s what our journey this past fiscal year was about: reinforcing our longstanding commitment to improving the lives of all children while reaching out to new stakeholders in our work.
Partnering with communities to ensure that every child and family can thrive remains our mission. During the past fiscal year, we deepened our commitment to that mission.
In April 2024, we published our Lighting Up the Future for Children report — the result of a year-long, intentional listening process undertaken in partnership with more than 2,000 grantees, vendors, subject-matter experts, families and community leaders. Unlike traditional planning approaches that focus primarily on addressing present-day issues facing children and families, this approach looks forward, identifying the trends, risks and opportunities facing a more child-centered future.
Featuring 10 potential forecasts for the next decade, the report advances the foundation’s efforts to build philanthropy and the nonprofit sector’s capacity for “futures thinking” — building solutions today for the challenges children will face in the years to come.
Through deep partnerships at the community level, we collectively achieved several milestones in our efforts to connect families with the support needed to give children a healthy start in life.
For example, in Detroit, we continued supporting early childhood success with Hope Starts Here, a collaborative effort connecting community members to infant and maternal health, child care and youth-development programs. In Battle Creek, Michigan we celebrated 100 individuals who earned their child development associate credentials through the Career Pathway program, helping to build the community’s early childhood education workforce.
In Mississippi, grantees like the Center for Health Equity, Education & Research (CHEER) at Boston Medical Center and Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE) helped the state rank second in the U.S for the number of hospitals designated “Baby-Friendly” — a global accreditation recognizing hospitals and birthing centers that promote breastfeeding and mother-baby bonding.
Across the U.S., our grantees led efforts resulting in 41 policy and industry wins focused on changing education, health, economic and other systems to work better for everyone. These efforts also garnered $4.5 billion in public and private investments to support community early childhood education innovations.
During the past year, we’ve intentionally expanded our reach, seeding discussion on equity and healing in new circles. This includes partnerships with the private sector to counter the organized attack on efforts to foster workplaces where all can feel welcome.
In January 2024, we brought our Business Case for Racial Equity to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, speaking with CNBC and Vista Equity Partners in front of a global audience of government, business and civil society leaders. In July, we expanded our presence in the investing world by hosting the inaugural Next Gen Investor Network Summer Symposium in New York City, convening more than 80 interns, summer associates and seasoned investment leaders from underrepresented communities to build the next generation of investors.
Our private-sector partners channeled investments into undercapitalized communities through our groundbreaking program Reimagining Opportunities for Investments (ROI) in the South. Together with a cohort of influential investors representing more than $100 billion in investable assets, several transformative investment opportunities emerged. This includes supporting underrepresented farmers, hiring and retaining workers reentering society after incarceration and shoring up funds for community banks and community development financial institutions.
Fostering connections between and among the wide variety of communities we serve is just as important as reaching new stakeholders. Solidarity has always been crucial for advancing racial equity and racial healing across the country and around the world; it’s the soil in which our efforts grow. Building solidarity affirms our shared future and creates opportunities for empathy and understanding across our differences.
In April 2024, our Solidarity Council on Racial Equity (SCoRE) — made up of global leaders in education, business, the arts, faith-based communities and news media—visited San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. There, they explored the impact of the broken U.S. immigration system and saw firsthand the challenges facing children and families along the southern border.
In the state of Yucatán, Mexico, a powerful network of Maya women rose to fight gender-based violence in the region. The network, founded in 2016, partners with schools, health care centers, the government, ejido (communally farmed land) and judicial authorities to educate women on their rights and provide timely support to those affected by violence. We have also seen the power of collective leadership on display through Global Fellows Network members like Ze Min Xiao, who leaned on the multigenerational wisdom of other fellows as she built Utah’s Center for Economic Opportunity and Belonging.
True solidarity also extends across generations, which is why we hosted a moving conversation with two renowned Freedom Riders, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Hezekiah Watkins. In the video, which WKKF released in time to honor the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, Trumpauer Mulholland and Watkins graciously shared their at-times harrowing experiences with the Civil Rights Movement and reiterated the connection between racial equity and racial healing.
If Mr. Kellogg could see our impact on the lives of children and families over the 2023-24 fiscal year, I’m confident he would be proud. Our grantees are making a difference — one community and one conversation at a time.
Of course, we have more work to do to realize Mr. Kellogg’s vision. In a moment of division, we must affirm that our differences make us stronger — and that equity is a fundamental component of a world that works for all children, families and communities.
Whatever headwinds we face, thanks to deep, broad roots established by our visionary forebearers and maintained by our team today, we will not waiver in our conviction that healing is necessary to ensure the “health, happiness and well-being” of every child.