Linked by a common heritage, the Casey organizations embody the vision of Jim Casey, the founder of UPS, to improve the lives of children who lack the family support, connections and opportunities to thrive.
Jim Casey and his siblings, George, Harry and Marguerite, established the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 1948 and named it to honor their mother, who kept the family together and provided them a secure and nurturing upbringing despite the struggles they endured after her husband died. It was the first of the organizations Jim Casey and his siblings created to serve vulnerable children and families.
Three years after UPS moved its headquarters in 1973 from Seattle to Greenwich, Conn., the Annie E. Casey Foundation established the Casey Family Program East, which later became Casey Family Services. Casey Family Services, a private child welfare agency, complemented the grant-making function of the Annie E. Casey Foundation by providing direct services throughout New England and in Maryland and working to improve the quality of foster care and promote permanence. The agency closed in 2012.
In 2001, Casey Family Programs and the Annie E. Casey Foundation launched the then-independent Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative to ensure that young people between the ages of 14 and 25 make successful transitions from foster care to adulthood. In 2015, the Jim Casey Initiative became part of the Casey Foundation, where, as a program, it and its 17 sites work to improve policies and practices at the national, state and local level to help youth make the connections they need for education, employment, health care, housing, and supportive personal and community relationships.
In 1966, Jim Casey established the Casey Family Program (later renamed Casey Family Programs) in Casey’s native Seattle to demonstrate how high-quality foster care could improve outcomes for children. Today, it is a national foundation with a mission to provide and improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care. This operating foundation works with children, families, communities, child welfare systems and policymakers to ensure that all children can be raised in a safe and permanent family. It draws on more than four decades of experience and expert research and analysis to provide high-quality services and support for children and families in the child welfare system and promotes improvements in practice and policy.
The only daughter and youngest child of Henry J. and Annie E. Casey, Marguerite Casey shared her brother Jim’s profound belief in the importance of family, leading her to spend much of her adult life creating opportunities to help families and communities succeed and thrive. Founded in 2001 to honor her and extend the reach of Casey Family Programs, the Marguerite Casey Foundation is a private, independent grant-making foundation dedicated to helping low-income families strengthen their voice and mobilize their communities. The foundation works to change and inform the advancement of social and economic policies and practices that promote the development of strong families and strong communities; encourage the development of a coherent knowledge base for advocates, families and the organizations that serve them; and invest in system change and cross-system change to generate greater knowledge and provide effective working models for practice.