Since its founding, the Foundation has been committed to the educational and life success foster youth.  In recent years, our work to support students furthest from opportunity has expanded to include a focus on youth experiencing homelessness, justice-involved youth, newcomer students, and multilingual students.

The efforts of Foundation partners over the last two decades have been central to elevating California’s position as a leader in advancing effective programs and policies for foster youth and demonstrate the power of collective efforts to addressing pressing needs. This includes identifying youth in foster care as a targeted population for increased resources through the Local Control Funding Formula and, more recently, expansion of the Next Up program, which provides sustainable state funding for foster youth support services at all community colleges, CSUs, and UCs; and the historic passage of the Fostering Futures program, which makes attendance to the state’s universities free for all foster youth in California who are admitted to a UC or CSU. 

Our work to support those advancing opportunities for these priority populations is anchored by three key areas of focus: supporting the development of robust data so that advocates and policy makers have the right information at the right time; building field knowledge through research; and elevating youth voice and leadership. We believe that youth furthest from opportunity are a barometer for the health and progress of reforms throughout the education, workforce, and social service systems. If these youth are seeing improved results and moving toward thriving, then the conditions are being put in place for all young Californians to thrive.