Making Connections is the flagship initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Its core strategy helps children succeed based on the belief that the best way to improve outcomes for vulnerable children living in tough neighborhoods is to strengthen their families’ connections to economic opportunity, positive social networks, and effective services and supports. Launched in 1999, Making Connections is a decade-long effort to demonstrate this theory in disinvested communities across the country, and in full partnership with residents, community-based organizations, local government, businesses, social service agencies, community foundations, and other funders.
A key component of Casey’s Making Connections initiative is a strong emphasis on the critical need for collecting and using reliable data, and a hard focus on achieving and sustaining measurable, concrete results. In addition, Making Connections advances a two-generation approach. Sites are working to connect parents to good jobs and asset building opportunities and to ensure that their young children benefit from better health care, quality early childhood services, and more intensive supports in the early grades. This sustained, simultaneous emphasis on families, economic opportunity, school success in early grades, and strengthening community capacity represents a significant departure from previous community change initiatives sponsored by Casey.
The Making Connections sites are Denver, CO; Des Moines, IA; Hartford, CT; Indianapolis, IN; Louisville, KY; Milwaukee, WI; Oakland, CA; Providence, RI; San Antonio, TX; and Seattle, WA.
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Member Site -- The private Technical Assistance Resource Center (TARC) website is designed for Making Connections site teams and select guests to share resources and request technical assistance. You will need a username and password to access this site.