About The Everychild Foundation


The Concept

Everychild Foundation is the highly successful and much replicated women’s philanthropy dedicated to easing suffering of Los Angeles’ children whether due to disease, disability, abuse, neglect or poverty. The group’s tagline is “Women Reinventing Philanthropy.”

As American women’s philanthropic opportunities have traditionally been limited to participating in fund-raising galas, the Everychild model has demonstrated that there is a stimulating and much more effective alternative.  In lieu of parties, over 200 women members join together, pooling brain power and yearly dues of $5,000 each, in order to award a single $ 1 million annual grant voted upon by the entire membership.  The grant must fund an innovative project for children that can inspire replication, thereby leveraging the members’ dollars to maximum effect.  All applicants must demonstrate that their project will directly and immediately serve children within one year of the grant award.  The goal is to see tangible, measurable and immediate results.

The Results

Since its founding in 2000 with just 56 members, the group has grown, granted over $6.5 million and directly served over 375,000 children.  It made its third full $ 1 million grant in March 2009.

Each project that has received the Everychild grant has in fact inspired replication either in the community, the nation or, in some cases, even outside the United States.  The projects have addressed many different needs:

  • Mobile Dental Clinic serving the poorest children in the city
  • 15 new elementary school libraries and a reading volunteer program in low-income schools lacking adequate facilities and instruction
  • Renovation and expansion of a counseling center for abused children
  • Expansion of a home for troubled boys exiting the probation system
  • Purchase of a building to house aging-out foster youth with a mentor
  • Construction of a universally accessible playground for youth with disabilities at an orthopedic hospital
  • Construction of a computer learning center for at-risk youth
  • Construction of a facility for an after-school program serving at-risk teens
  • Program to send technicians into slum housing of children diagnosed with lead poisoning and severe asthma to ameliorate the conditions contributing to their illnesses and to empower the parents how to do so.

The Process

A group of members, comprising the Grant Screening Board, spend the year working with a highly trained grant consultant researching grant proposals addressing the many critical unmet needs of children.  At the conclusion of the year, the Board narrows the candidates down to a final two that have been highly vetted, and the entire membership of over 200 members selects one project to fund.

Every grant is closely monitored and Everychild’s system of accountability has provided its members with the confidence that their dollars are well spent.  A Grant Monitoring Committee requires reports from each grantee and pays site visits.

Replication and Recognition

This efficient model of philanthropy has now inspired the creation of 7 other similar organizations: The Nevada Women’s Philanthropy, Today and Tomorrow Children’s Fund at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, Women Helping Youth The Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara, The Women’s Fund of Northern Santa Barbara County, The Blue Heron Foundation, and The AVIVA Platinum Associates.

Everychild Foundation was recognized at the Outstanding Private Foundation in Los Angeles by the Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2004 and has been profiled in Kiplinger’s, The Los Angeles Times and on Australian Public Radio.   It has also been the subject of a piece in the national philanthropy journal, The Non-Profit and Voluntary Quarterly, published by a consortium of major American universities.

For more information about The Everychild Foundation, go to http://www.everychildfoundation.org