In the nine decades since Will Keith Kellogg established the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, our dedication to his vision for children has only deepened. In a 90th year of challenges and crises, Mr. Kellogg's bold action so that "children can face the future with confidence" is more compelling and vital than ever.
In 1930, W.K. Kellogg established a private philanthropy "for the health, happiness and well-being of children." In 2020, Board Chair Celeste A. Clark and President and CEO La June Montgomery Tabron speak to the relevance of WKKF's legacy today and how Mr. Kellogg's leadership and action continue to direct our path.
"Mr. Kellogg was a force for change. When we look at leadership from that lens, its relevance today is striking."
CELESTE A. CLARK BOARD CHAIR
"In such a year, the spirit of Mr. Kellogg's leadership has called us to innovate, stretch and adapt with the same boldness he did in 1930."
LA JUNE MONTGOMERY TABRON PRESIDENT & CEO
Michigan was the foundation's first priority place and remains one today. But the reach and scope of our grantees' work on behalf of children, families and communities today bears out Mr. Kellogg's confidence in people to solve problems and surmount obstacles when given the opportunity.
Michigan
Shared Data Moving the Needle for Young Children
In 2014, just 15.5% of Battle Creek's children were ready for kindergarten. By 2020, that rate has more than doubled to 39.2%. Improvement on that scale doesn't happen by accident. In Battle Creek, it's the result of a decade-long collaborative focus involving organizations across the early childhood education and care spectrum – all committed to improving outcomes for children in the city. And if you ask partners today where that commitment started, they'd point to the data. In 2010, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded the Early Development Instrument (EDI) to gather and centralize data about five key domains of young children's lives in Battle Creek. The numbers helped local partners discover another barrier they needed to overcome.
New Orleans
Change happens at the pace of the people
New Orleans is known as the soul of America. But like many iconic American communities, the city faces the racial inequities at the forefront of every conversation now. As W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) grantees and partners in New Orleans know, the challenges they create for children and families are immense and continuous. WKKF has been learning about those challenges alongside community leaders in New Orleans for a very long time. They affirm that the racial inequities we're witnessing today aren't anything new for Black and Brown people. In New Orleans – and in all of the places where we work intensively – inequities are anchored in systems designed to make it more difficult for some to thrive more than others. And they are systems hundreds of years in the making.
New Mexico
Creativity and Speedy Adaption Outfit Frontline Workers
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, at Southwest Creations Collaborative's (SCC) 10,000-square-foot industrial building, a social enterprise group of 36 successful entrepreneurs — a culturally diverse mix of women, some of whom are immigrants — are busy designing and sewing protective gear for frontline workers across the state. Their goal is producing thousands of protective masks and gowns to keep first responders and health providers safe during the coronavirus pandemic.
Haiti
Facing a Monumental Challenge While Improving Access to Quality Child and Maternal Care in Mirebalais, Haiti
In Haiti, the coronavirus pandemic threatens an already fragile health system for a country that's too familiar with devastating natural disasters. As the uncertainty mounts, here's how one local hospital is courageously fighting the pervasive disease in the island nation.
Mexico
In a Pandemic, Kids' TV Producers Keep Indigenous Mexican Voices in the Conversation
Some of us are watching and reading credible sources on the coronavirus every day. Others face a serious dearth of helpful information about the pandemic in a language they can understand. It's a dangerous situation that organizations around the world have quickly and creatively stepped up to address.
COVID-19
Spreading Information to Fight COVID-19 Across Cultures
In early 2020, as the novel coronavirus began to spread, fear and misinformation did, too. In response, W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantees and partners across the Americas brought together artists, communicators and translators to craft urgent messages that would reach and touch people in many communities.
Community, Collaboration
Community has been at the core of WKKF efforts from the beginning. Mr. Kellogg described it as "cooperative planning, intelligent study and group action."  In 2020, grantees live that legacy. Cross-sector collaboration, relationships and shared purpose turn the insight and resolve of people into tangible change on the ground in communities.
One Size Doesn't Fit All
If no two communities are the same, their challenges and solutions will be just as distinct. Take Biloxi, Mississippi, where W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantee Moore Community House's Women In Construction training program is helping women tap into a growing, but typically male-dominated, industry.
The Common Market: A Bountiful Response to COVID-19
In 2020, The Common Market, a Philadelphia-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) grantee, found a way to distribute 1.1 million emergency food boxes and at the same time support the viability of 132 family farms.
Reflections on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
Since the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) launched Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) in 2016, 14 communities have implemented TRHT processes to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism.
Responsive, Affordable Banking Services Closing Mississippi's Racial Wealth Gap
In Mississippi, Black residents were already facing disparities in economic opportunity before the arrival of COVID-19. These disparities are widening as unemployment rises and businesses fight to survive.
Navajo and Hopi Women Leading Efforts to Safeguard Indigenous Communities
Growing up on the land of her ancestors with no running water or electricity, Branch describes her childhood as one filled with abundance. "I grew up with the beautiful land, water and cultural traditions, surrounded by family and learning the abundance of life's blessings," she says. For Branch and many others, the land provided just what was needed.
Growing Haiti's Food Systems With Determination and Partners
Even before the novel coronavirus became a global threat, the United Nations had dire predictions for Haiti in 2020. A UN humanitarian agency report in December 2019 forecast that within months 40 percent of Haitians would "require urgent humanitarian assistance."
Connected Futures: Bridging the Digital Divide in Detroit
While students in many districts could continue their education from home online, that wasn't an option for most of the 51,000 students in Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD). An estimated 85 to 90% of DPSCD students lacked the devices and internet access essential to continue learning.
The Business Case for Investing in Child Care
A recent report by a W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantee, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, found that Mississippi is losing $673 million annually because of gaps in child care.
Leveraging Resources & Building Network
Our grantees and investment partners have always been catalytic partners in their communities and sectors — generating and using ideas, data and knowledge to attract resources for innovation. In broad networks, they are reinvigorating sectors and illustrating the power and relevance of collective leadership.
Michigan Grantees Protect Equitable Employment by Supporting Small Businesses
In 2019, there were more than 870,000 small businesses in Michigan employing about 1.9 million people (more than 49% of the state's private workforce). *Small businesses play a vital role in the economic health and security of families and communities across the state.
Strong Relationships and Big Ideas Catalyze Philanthropists of Color
When communities envision the future and the changes they want to see, creativity, leadership and generosity are on full display. This is especially true in the cohort of more than 30 organizations in the Catalyzing Community Giving (CCG) initiative.
WKKF Community Leadership Network (CLN): Visionary Leaders Rise to the Occasion
In times of unprecedented turmoil, communities turn to compassionate and capable local leaders to help bridge the divides and bring about positive change.
Mission Driven Investing Accelerates Change
Mission-driven investing uses both below-market-rate and market-rate investments–effectively putting more money to work in communities and growing the range of opportunities available to investors looking for ways to fuel meaningful change.
WKKF-Resource Directory: Knowledge as a Public Good, Informing Today's Challenges
W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Enhanced Resource Directory – A newly refreshed and enhanced Resource Directory is available on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's website, featuring resources published or funded by WKKF.
New Mexico: A Day in the Life of a Childcare Provider in New Mexico
The sun has yet to rise over the Organ Mountains in Las Cruces New Mexico, and Valeria Holloway has already disinfected every corner of her home-based childcare center, sanitized all toys and ensured activity stations are set for safe distance learning.
Haiti: Engaging With Community to Fight COVID-19
Dr. Inobert Pierre has seen his share of emergencies. In 2010, after working for eight years as a pediatrician at the St. Boniface Hospital in Fond-des-Blancs, Haiti, Pierre became the institution's general director. Just months before, an earthquake had killed more than 100,000 of his compatriots, and in the decade that followed he led the hospital through a relentless parade of crises.
National: Dismantling Structural Racism Removes Barriers to Capital
The racial wealth gap persists in part because businesses owned by people of color are shut out of the capital markets at every turn. This was true before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to a 2018 Small Business Administration report that found business enterprises owned by entrepreneurs of color experienced higher interest rates and more loan denials. Similar trends persisted throughout 2020.
Michigan: Finding Hope in Detroit
Why do some children develop resilience, while others don't? Understanding why some children do well despite adverse early experiences is crucial. Healthy development in the early years provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, strong communities and successful parenting of the next generation.
Pushing Boundaries Raising Voices
The Kellogg Foundation's roots are in changing the status quo, and grantees embrace that legacy with children's lives and futures in mind. As their actions demonstrate, that may require taking risks, going out front on issues, finding unlikely allies and amplifying voices often muted in decision making.
The Year Ahead
The Kellogg Foundation's legacy set us on a path. But learning has been continuous in the 90 years since. This past year's lessons, based on grantee adaptation, commitment and action mark the way forward.
Advance Racial Equity by 2030
A global call to advance racial equity by 2030. Our founder Will Keith Kellogg established the foundation in 1930 during a global economic crisis. He made his commitment known by saying, "I'll invest my money in people." For 90 years, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has pursued its mission based on his belief that people have the capacity to solve their own problems.
Advancing Racial Equity in Business
Advancing racial equity requires leadership at every level. That is why the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) broadened its racial equity efforts in 2020 to work directly with the corporate sector. The goal is to expand equitable opportunity by transforming some of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the United States.
Transparency
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was one of the first private philanthropies to operationalize transparency by publishing an annual report in 1951. In the practice of steady measurement and accounting over 90 years, we infuse Mr. Kellogg's practical business orientation into every aspect of our work on behalf of children, families and communities.
Meet Our Board
From Left: Celeste A. Clark (Battle Creek, Michigan), Milton Chen (San Francisco, California), Richard M. Tsoumas (Battle Creek, Michigan), Khan Nedd (Grand Rapids, Michigan), La June Montgomery Tabron (Battle Creek, Michigan), Ramón Murguía (Kansas City, Kansas), Cathann Kress (Columbus, Ohio), Roderick D. Gillum (Detroit, Michigan) and Christina K. Hanger (Plano, Texas)
Connect with Us
"It has given me a great deal of satisfaction to feel that the contributions of the Foundation will help children everywhere to face the future more confidently, healthier in mind and body, and more secure in their trust of this country and its institutions." – W.K. Kellogg