Human Services

The Human Services program focuses on providing families and communities who struggle with the daily realities of living in poverty with the tools they need to enter, and advance in, the economic mainstream. We work with partners who are reimagining support systems and co-creating solutions with people to best help them achieve their goals and dreams – all with an eye toward advancing social and economic mobility (SEM).

Even though the current social and political environment presents significant challenges –from a fraying social safety net to continuous funding pressures on nonprofit and public human services organizations – the human service sector continues make a positive difference.

Our focus areas and cross-cutting areas are designed to advance SEM for children, youth and families. Furthermore, the Human Service Program has an explicit focus on SEM utilizing a racial equity lens.

FOSTERING THE NEXT GENERATION OF HUMAN SERVICES ORGANIZATIONS

Utilizing a cohort-based learning model, we support high-performing organizations characterized as: person-centered; outcomes-based; data-driven; applying a racial equity lens; and focused on greater sector impact and systems-wide change. Working as individual organizations and as a group, these nonprofit and public human services organizations adhere to innovative best practices revolutionizing the human services sector such as brain-science informed and whole-family approaches.

BUILDING PLACE-BASED OPPORTUNITY ECOSYSTEMS

We focus efforts in select cities to create sustainable, integrated and person-centered systems of supports and services anchored by nonprofit and public human services organizations.

Building on the needs and lessons of our provider and place-based work, we make investments, support learning networks and opportunities, and act as a convener.

DEVELOPING SUPPORTIVE, ALIGNED PUBLIC POLICY 

We support efforts that advance public policy at multiple levels that help people achieve well-being and SEM.

BUILDING A MORE ROBUST HUMAN SERVICES FIELD

We support a range of supportive activities to advance the field toward social and economic mobility.

Grant opportunities are listed on the Human Services Program focus area pages, linked above, and on the Current Funding Opportunities page.

As we evaluate proposals, we look for efforts that:

• Are squarely focused on advancing and accelerating social and economic mobility.
• Offer innovative and effective approaches that can provide lessons for the field.
• Have a clear strategic vision and are able to articulate what works and why (theory of change).
• Have shared and adaptive leadership.
• Recognize racial equity as an orienting principle and seek to operationalize racial equity.
• Are intensely person-centered in their approach and utilize best practices (brain science informed, two-generation, whole-family approaches, etc.)
• Are outcomes focused and data driven.
• Measure organizational and programmatic efforts against the Human Service Value Curve.
• Are committed to person-centered (including co-creation and power-sharing) systems change driven by addressing structural barriers through policy solutions, are also positioned to inform and influence communities of practice and build the public will for supportive public policies.

We do not fund:

• Capital requests.
• Individuals.
• Organizations that discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, sexual orientation or veteran status.
• Organizations that require membership in certain religions or advance a particular religious faith. (Faith-based organizations may be eligible if they welcome and serve all members of the community regardless of religious belief.)
• Programs operated to benefit for-profit organizations.

We use a full array of funding and investment tools to foster change, including project grants, operating support, planning grants and program-related investments. Program-related investments may take the form of direct loans, guarantees that provide credit support to borrowers or linked deposits. (Learn more about our social investing.) And, in certain situations, when project proposals offer opportunities to advance the goals of multiple teams, those teams will jointly (cross team) fund the proposal. Most of our grants span one to three years.

We also use our resources to serve as a thought partner. This often occurs through hosting convenings, round tables, joining grantee partners at national meetings, participating in work sessions with various partners, brokering relationships and other activities.

We announce Kresge’s grant opportunities on our website and through our weekly newsletter. You may be notified of these opportunities by subscribing to our weekly newsletter or by following @kresgefdn and @kresgehumansvcs on Twitter.