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The mission of the Pathways Out of Poverty program is to identify, test and help sustain pathways out of poverty for low-income people and communities.
This mission summarizes our goal of seeing people move along a road to self-sufficiency. It is based on our vision for the nation's educational, economic and social systems to be just and effective so that access to meaningful opportunity is shared fairly, giving all children, adults, families and communities a chance to live free of poverty.
We believe education, economic participation and community action are critical to moving low-income Americans toward greater prosperity. These three areas are the pillars of our plan to address poverty in the U.S. The program consists of four grantmaking areas:
The first three areas enable us to support efforts to nurture systemic change in the educational, economic and community systems that produce and perpetuate poverty in the U.S. The fourth area allows us to support projects that are crosscutting in nature and to explore special opportunities.
We understand:
- that the nation's increasingly skill-based economy demands a better trained, more educated work force;
- that wages must be sufficient for a person to earn a decent living, given that a job alone does not ensure an escape from poverty;
- that the hard-to-employ face a special challenge in our current "work first"/welfare reform climate; and
- that well-organized communities have the best chance of achieving positive change.
The plan also reflects our belief that racism contributes to, and shapes, poverty in the U.S. Thus, we remain alert to opportunities to address institutional racism.
Funding for unsolicited proposals is limited throughout the program. Those interested in applying for funding are strongly encouraged to submit letters of inquiry instead of a full proposal.
We strongly suggest that organizations seeking funding from this program carefully review all program guidelines in this section and our application procedures.