Child Trends Receives Gift from Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott

February 8, 2022

Child Trends is thrilled to share the news that we have received a $10 million grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. We thank Ms. Scott for her generosity and appreciate her confidence in the positive impact of our work on the lives of children and youth.

This unrestricted grant is game-changing for Child Trends. It will enable us to accelerate our efforts to combat child poverty and promote equity for children and youth of color. Across our work, we see the longstanding toxic threats that poverty and racial injustice pose to millions of children and youth in the United States, and we are committed to doing more to eradicate these threats. Child Trends has been steadily building its impact in both areas. Now, with this remarkable new gift, we can go further and work faster in this critical work to:

• Apply new data sources and techniques to gain greater insight into the causes and consequences of poverty and racial injustice for children and youth.
• Identify proven and promising strategies, especially those that have the potential to scale.
• Call out approaches that fall short of helping children and youth—or worse, that perpetuate harm.
• Infuse policy debates and policy solutions with high-quality data and research, and provide public officials with effective and timely data tools and resources.

The status quo for children and youth of color and for those growing up in poverty is unacceptable. Child Trends has much to offer our nation, states, and communities as we all take on the hard work of disrupting that status quo. We look forward to bringing new resources to that work and—as always—to working in partnership with all of you.