The S.H. Cowell Foundation works to improve the quality of life of children living in poverty in Northern and Central California by providing support to strengthen families and communities.
Driven by a belief that children, family and community success are deeply interwoven, the Foundation makes grants to communities in four main program areas: Family Resource Centers, Education, Youth Development, and Affordable Housing. A fifth program area, Responsive Grantmaking, provides support to organizations with critical needs beyond our main program priorities.
| Our grantmaking is rooted in a strategy that is both place-based and complementary in design.
Our approach is place-based. Cowell looks for low-income communities in Northern and Central California where there is a readiness and commitment to embrace social change. Community members (that is to say, both individuals and institutions) must possess a clear desire to make a lasting difference for kids and families in the neighborhoods where they live, learn, work and play.
Our approach iscomplementary-based. Cowell makes clusters of grants within specific communities to support schools, youth development organizations, family resource centers, affordable housing, and other critical community needs. We fund projects, programs and initiatives designed to touch the lives of community members on multiple levels simultaneously (at home, school, work and play) in order to increase the likelihood of lasting community change. |
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The Cowell Foundation believes that long term success is most likely in communities where residents, service providers, educators and civic leaders are able to create a common vision and work together to improve the quality of life for children and families living in poverty. No one is just a student or just a parent, just a worker or just a tenant. Rather, individuals are involved in their community on many levels at once; we are all part of an integrated social fabric, each with complex and interrelated associations, identities, needs and assets.
Community success also depends on the power of people and institutions—individually and collectively—to effect lasting change. That is why Cowell supports efforts to identify, enhance and build capacity through civic participation, organizational development, technical assistance and training, collaboration, the development of needed facilities and physical spaces and the delivery of essential social services.
When these factors align, the community and its members benefit on many levels:
- community organizations and institutions are strengthened
- neighborhood quality of life improves
- families function more effectively
- students succeed in, and out of, school
- and children and youth are better prepared for adulthood
Finally, the Cowell Foundation believes that grant deliverables, outcomes and results matter. We have high expectations for the communities where we fund, and we hold grantees accountable to a rigorous set of standards that are comparable to those with which we measure our own progress. At the same time, we strive to be as flexible and responsive to community needs as possible, working and adapting to the unique qualities and circumstances of each community we serve.
