New Partnerships to Strengthen Communities in Buffalo, Columbus and San Antonio

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion today announced that it is form­ing part­ner­ships in three cities to improve the well-being of chil­dren and their fam­i­lies through com­mu­ni­ty- and fam­i­ly-focused innovations.

Over the next two years, the Casey Foun­da­tion will award up to $150,000 annu­al­ly to part­ners in Buf­fa­lo, N.Y.; Colum­bus, Ohio; and San Anto­nio to sup­port com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment with­in low-income neigh­bor­hoods in their cities, while also help­ing them devel­op pro­grams that serve chil­dren and their par­ents at the same time. These part­ners are com­mit­ted to adopt­ing a two-gen­er­a­tion approach — a key com­po­nent of the Foundation’s work — by pro­vid­ing pro­grams for chil­dren that focus on healthy devel­op­ment, growth and edu­ca­tion, as well as ser­vices for adults that con­cen­trate on par­ent­ing, job skills and finan­cial security.

“After more than two decades of com­mu­ni­ty change work through­out the coun­try, the Casey Foun­da­tion strong­ly believes that chil­dren do well when their fam­i­lies do well, and that fam­i­lies thrive when they live in sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ties,” said Ryan Chao, the Foundation’s vice pres­i­dent for civic sites and com­mu­ni­ty change. ​“We are excit­ed to work with like­mind­ed part­ners in these cities to devel­op a more fam­i­ly-focused approach to com­mu­ni­ty development.”

The Foun­da­tion is part­ner­ing with these initiatives:

• the Buf­fa­lo Promise Neigh­bor­hood, a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort of M&T Bank, the West­min­ster Foun­da­tion and oth­ers, which focus­es on a north­east Buf­fa­lo neighborhood.
   
• the Wein­land Park Col­lab­o­ra­tive, a neigh­bor­hood part­ner­ship that includes The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty, The Colum­bus Foun­da­tion and the JPMor­gan Chase Foun­da­tion, and whose efforts con­cen­trate on a Colum­bus neigh­bor­hood south­east of the university.
   
• the East­side Promise Neigh­bor­hood and the Choice Neigh­bor­hood ini­tia­tive, led by Unit­ed Way of San Anto­nio and Bexar Coun­ty and the San Anto­nio Hous­ing Author­i­ty, which are at work in a com­mu­ni­ty east of the city’s down­town with near­ly 18,000 residents.

These ini­tia­tives pos­sess sev­er­al of the attrib­ut­es that the Foun­da­tion believes are key to suc­cess­ful neigh­bor­hood trans­for­ma­tion, such as the pres­ence of an estab­lished part­ner­ship of local orga­ni­za­tions and pub­lic agen­cies; high-qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion, health and oth­er sup­port ser­vices for chil­dren; robust job train­ing and finan­cial edu­ca­tion pro­grams for adults; active­ly engaged par­ents and res­i­dents; and access to afford­able hous­ing to pro­mote res­i­den­tial stability.

The Casey Foun­da­tion will col­lab­o­rate with its local part­ners over the next one to two years to design, pilot and plan for the broad­er imple­men­ta­tion of pro­grams and strate­gies geared toward fam­i­lies with young chil­dren with­in the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. Once these steps are suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed, the Foun­da­tion plans to pro­vide addi­tion­al sup­port rang­ing from $750,000 to $1 mil­lion annu­al­ly to imple­ment and eval­u­ate these ser­vices over the next sev­er­al years.