Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

The Portland-based mentoring nonprofit Friends of the Children (FOTC) is embarking on an ambitious expansion this year, adding five new locations to its current roster of 11 cities. FOTC pairs vulnerable children — such as foster youth, children of teen parents — with a trained, paid Friends employee for 12 years.

In 2000, less than a decade after its founding, the National Family Preservation Network was facing an abrupt demise. The organization came into existence as research began to support Intensive Family Preservation Services (IFPS), commonly known as Homebuilders, the model developed out of Tacoma, Wash.,

Steve and Connie Ballmer got in on the ground floor of the technological revolution centered on the rise of the personal computer. Having amassed a tech-fueled fortune worth over $20 billion by the time he retired after 34 years at Microsoft, the pair are once again key players at the forefront of a new age, this time as the power of technology is injected into the child welfare system in hopes of improving the lives of children, youth and families.

As Youth Services Insider reported earlier this month, a small group of youth- and family-serving organizations will soon change forever thanks to massive investments from Blue Meridian Partners, a capital aggregation project led by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.

A few youth-serving organizations will never be the same once Blue Meridian Partners, a group of ten major grant makers in the United States, announces the recipients of its big bet gambit for kids.

Aging out of foster care can be a difficult process. With little community support, former foster kids are more at risk for homelessness, arrest and incarceration, and failure to graduate from college.

“Funder collaboration has not yet risen to the challenge before us,” said Chuck Harris of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF), in a recent conversation with Eye on Philanthropy. I connected with Harris recently, to learn more about the role of impact investing in philanthropy, particularly for children.

  Unless and until child welfare risk assessment instruments and tools can be made more accurate and reliable, child welfare systems around the country will continue to be plagued by scandals including high rates of families being re-referred for abuse and neglect, and worse: too high an incidence of child fatalities where the families were known to child welfare authorities.

The Administration for Children and Families announced a $35 million initiative, $10 million of which is private foundation funding, to replicate a New York City program aimed at stabilizing families in crisis through supportive housing.