Today the W.K. Kellogg Foundation comes together in partnership with seven other leading and diverse philanthropic organizations to announce the formation of The Care for All with Respect and Equity (CARE) Fund. This $50 million, multi-year, pooled fund will make investments in bold, transformational change to build comprehensive care infrastructure that works for everyone.
“At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, children are at the heart of everything we do,” says La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. “Comprehensive, bold investments in what children and families of color need to be healthy and economically secure are necessary for lasting, transformational change to happen. The CARE Fund is uniquely positioned to do just that, bringing together a breadth of funders focused across issues of health, racial and gender equity, early childhood and worker justice to secure an economy that honors and values care.”
The CARE Fund, which has already issued its first grants, will invest in:
- Broad-based movement building to amplify the voices of those who provide and consume care, including parents, family caregivers, people with disabilities and older adults, home care workers, and early educators — so they are at the forefront of identifying and organizing for solutions that meet all their needs;
- Organizing and advocacy for policy change that will create high quality, universally affordable early care and education, long-term services and supports for older adults and those with disabilities, and paid family and medical leave, accessible to all, especially Black, Indigenous and People of Color families and people with disabilities who have been historically excluded;
- Sound implementation of new policies and investments at the community level to ensure all children and families are able to thrive, especially families with low incomes and people of color;
- Winning dignified living wages and benefits for predominantly immigrant and women of color workers who provide care; and
- Redefining both care work and care services as a permanent public good worthy of public and private financing and long term investments by enhancing a deep narrative and culture shift in the way care is valued.
The CARE Fund includes commitments and pledges from grantmakers across issue areas, including the Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, the Perigee Fund, Pivotal Ventures and Open Society Foundations. Housed at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the fund already made $2.5 million in rapid response grants to meet the urgency and opportunity of this moment. These grants include support for leading advocates who are coming together to hone strategies and build a broader, more powerful movement for care. Use #TheCAREFund to join the conversation.
