The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation supports organizations that help young people, ages 9 to 24, from low-income backgrounds become independent, productive adults in three ways:

• Improving their educational skills and achievement;
• Preparing them for the world of work so they can find and hold jobs and achieve economic self-sufficiency; and
• Helping them avoid high-risk behaviors such as teen pregnancy, substance abuse and illegal activities.

We believe that an effective and efficient way to meet the urgent needs of these youth is to make large, long-term investments in nonprofit organizations whose programs have been proven to produce positive outcomes and that have the potential for growth. Our funding consists largely of support for business planning, capacity building and program evaluation, so that grantees can expand while maintaining the quality of their programs, make an impact on the life trajectories of more young people, and eventually become organizationally, programmatically and financially sustainable. Our goal is to help develop a growing pool of organizations that serve thousands more youth each year with proven programs.

Although the Foundation does not accept unsolicited applications, we invite organizations that think they may qualify for support after reviewing our Selection Criteria to complete the Foundation’s online Youth Organizations Preliminary Application Form.

For more information about how the foundation works, please consult the following pages:

Our Theory of Change
The Foundation has developed a theory of change to achieve the outcomes it seeks for low-income youth and the organizations that serve them.

Selection Criteria & Due Diligence
The Foundation uses six criteria to assess a candidate for investment during an intensive examination of a potential grantee.

Our Investment Approach
The Foundation works with a grantee to structure an investment that will best serve the organization’s needs and advance the Foundation’s goals. 

Levels of Evidence
The Foundation distinguishes among three levels of evidence that a program is effective, and helps grantees reach the highest level of proof possible in order to ensure impact and sustainability.

Organizational Capacity
The Foundation looks at different aspects of leadership, financials and operations when evaluating the organizational capacity of grantees.

Single-Service and Multi-Service Organizations
The Foundation primarily invests in single-service organizations, but also makes targeted investments in multi-service organizations as well.

Business Planning
The discipline of business planning can have a transformative effect on an organization.

Performance Milestones
EMCF investments include performance milestones that the grantee sets in consultation with the Foundation and to which it agrees to be held accountable.

Other Supports
Because it takes more than money to build an organization’s capacity, the Foundation provides several kinds of extra-financial support.

Making an Exit
The goal of the Foundation’s grantmaking is not to sustain a nonprofit indefinitely, but to help it achieve within an agreed-upon time frame significant scale and the highest level of proven program effectiveness possible.

Growth Capital Aggregation Pilot
The Foundation is testing a new approach to helping youth-serving organizations with great promise and proven efficacy reach significant, sustainable scale. The Growth Capital Aggregation Pilot has raised up-front from 19 co-investors and three organizations’ boards of directors all the capital these organizations need to implement ambitious plans to expand.

Sharing Knowledge
The Foundation is committed to sharing the lessons learned from its successes and failures.