The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation exists to relentlessly pursue economic, educational, social, ethnic, and racial equity for all Arkansans. The foundation believes that building pathways to opportunity requires broad systemic change and seeks levers that offer the greatest promise to increase prosperity from one generation to the next.

The foundation's strategy, AR Equity, centers on supporting organizations and leaders working to expand access to opportunity so that every Arkansan can earn a living wage, pursue quality education, and create a future where their families thrive. A particular focus is on ALICE households—Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, and Employed families—which represent close to 50% of Arkansas households.

Primary program areas include:

• Narrative Change: Commissioned messaging research through surveys and focus groups to build Arkansas-specific narrative campaigns supporting ALICE families. The foundation created the HEAL Lab, a communications training program for nonprofit partners, and staged the Starshine Narrative Summit engaging 300 communications professionals, artists, and community leaders.

• Capital Access and Asset Development: The foundation created the ABCs of Equity (ALICE, Business Case for Equity, and Capital Access Report) to quantify equity challenges and identify strategies to overcome them, driving action to increase lending resources to previously undercapitalized entrepreneurs.

• Community Leadership, Education Access, and Economic Security: Long-term, flexible funding for movement building, community organizing, policy advocacy, and narrative change that expands opportunity for ALICE families.