This section offers questions and examples for strategic planning on Whole Family funding

    As foundations conduct regular strategic planning processes to adjust and/or revamp their work as conditions change, incorporating a whole family lens can help boards and staff to assess how to best support families for optimal success.

    Your foundation likely invests in one or more areas of whole family work. As you go through strategic planning, below are questions and considerations that can expand your thinking and analysis, and ultimately improve your outcomes.

    Questions for Whole Family Funding

    Because whole family, two-generation work takes into account so many areas of family well-being, and therefore many services, each foundation will need to approach incorporating whole family thinking differently. Here are some overarching questions to consider from various angles of whole family investing:

    Investment Type

    All investments

    Key Questions

    Programmatic

    Investment Type

    Early Childhood Education

    Key Questions

    Examples

    LIFT works with parents referred by early childhood centers in four cities to support their career and financial success.


    Investment Type

    Education, Employment, and Training

    Key Questions

    Examples

    In the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s STEPS initiative, workforce organizations partnered with early childhood providers to support single parents and their children in employment and childhood development. Many of the organizations also partnered with their local K-12 districts and created new relationships to support the whole family.


    Investment Type

    Financial Success

    Key Questions

    Examples

    Delaware’s Stand By Me program has piloted a partnership with early childhood centers to provide coaching to parents and employees of the centers.


    Investment Type

    Health and Well-Being

    Key Questions

    Examples

    Work Life Partnership provides navigators to entry-level employees at partner employers to ensure they are able to access the resources they need to keep their employment, including public benefits and community resources.


    Investment Type

    Social Capital

    Key Questions

    Examples

    Social capital is one of the five pillars of the Jeremiah Program’s approach, which has shown significant impact for families. Using bonding social capital (peer support within communities) and bridging social capital (connecting participants outside their community), Jeremiah has helped hundreds of families move ahead.

    Policy

    Investment Type

    Policy Development

    Key Questions

    Examples

    A Whole Family Approach to Jobs is a New England initiative working with state government, advocates, parents, and businesses to change policies to support families and whole family approaches.


    Investment Type

    Advocacy

    Key Questions

    Examples

    The Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona brings women to the statehouse each year for a public advocacy day, preparing them in advance to speak with legislators and talk about what families need to move ahead.

    Research and Evaluation

    Investment Type

    Research

    Key Questions

    Examples

    The General Accounting Office used a whole family lens when assessing a number of programs across the country.

    The Urban Institute created a framework for whole family work that can help researchers in their framing.


    Investment Type

    Evaluation

    Key Questions

    Examples

    CareerAdvance in Tulsa looked at both Head Start and Early Head Start outcomes for families, as well as parent employment outcomes, to understand how whole family approaches can move all members of a family forward.

    Vision and Mission

    It may be helpful to consider these questions in two parts – first, as you are revisiting your vision and mission at the outset, and then again at the end, if you have incorporated some or all of a two-generation framework, how you might change your vision and mission statements.

    At the outset:

    Looking at the vision and mission of your foundation, what parts of whole family, two generation approaches are aligned and how?

    What parts of our vision and mission reflect a two-generation approach now?

    Are there other elements of two generation work that could contribute to our vision and mission, and if so, how?

    Reflection at the end:

    How should we change our vision and mission statements to reflect our expanded two-generation framework and strategy?

    Values

    Which of our core values as a foundation are aligned with whole family approaches?

    For example:
    If racial equity is a core value, how does two-generation thinking inform that value? Do we recognize the systemic forces that are limiting children’s futures in part because parents themselves face barriers to employment because of their race or ethnicity? If expanding opportunity is a core value, how does two-generation thinking inform that value? When you think about expanding opportunity, is that for parents, for children, or for both?

    How does a whole family approach inform how we might strengthen our values, or see them differently?

    Assessing the Current Landscape

    Many foundations use a SWOT analysis in their strategic planning process to recalibrate their work. Below are questions you can incorporate into a SWOT process related to whole family, two generation approaches.

    Current portfolio

    External

    Fellow philanthropy

    Current landscape

    Outcomes

    Strategies

    Which two-generation components do you see as important to your mission and vision? How can you build those components into your investment strategy?

    How might you invest differently using the whole family lens? Where might you fill gaps that would lead to better outcomes?

    Are there strategies that are “nearby” or “adjacent” to your current strategies that you could incorporate? For example, if you are funding higher education programs for single moms, you could establish an adjacent strategy to fund either policy or practices to secure quality child care for the children. Similarly, if you are funding parenting strategies through early childhood centers, you could add a strategy on financial coaching, or connecting those parents to employment and training.

    Where might you partner with other philanthropy to create a whole family approach?