Issue Areas

A high quality education levels the playing field for all young people and provides the one concrete opportunity for anyone to live the American dream. A high quality public education is the sine qua non of our neighborhoods and nation and is the only systemic means by which to break the cycle of poverty. A select group of Massachusetts’ schools have proven what heights even the most disadvantaged students can achieve when excellent leaders are coupled with great teachers and unfettered from bureaucracy. All children, especially those in low income neighborhoods deserve an exemplary education and we work with both public schools and non-profit leaders to advance their work.

 Youth development to careers can build the skills and character traits to ensure young people progress to self-sufficiency. All SGP grantees working in this arena have one of two central goals in common: getting young people to work and/or getting them to and through a post-secondary or career track experience, important precursors to self-sufficiency and long-term success.

Child Welfare’s goal is for each child to have a permanent, safe home. Although dire circumstances exist where children must be placed in a residential facility, long term stays in institutions are not the best way to achieve successful long-term outcomes for children.  Children are best raised at home with a caring family. Our investments in child welfare have focused on family restoration and family permanence. Effective, intensive in-home services provide better outcomes ensuring families are well served. We also provide support to the public child welfare system in their pursuit of positive reforms.

Helping the working poor move to economic self-sufficiency is fundamentally intertwined within all our issue areas. Children’s outcomes are directly linked to their parents’ success and home stability. Much public system support creates dependency, not opportunities. We have interest in out of the box ideas, programs and policy work that create opportunities for work and incentives for families to become self-sufficient.

Our grants to universities have a maximum overhead of 2.5%.