Duke Endowment: Child and Family Well-Being Grant

Duke Endowment: Child and Family Well-Being Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: The Duke Endowment
Last Updated: October 31, 2025

Summary

The Duke Endowment's Child and Family Well-Being Grant provides implementation support to public and private agencies in North and South Carolina. This funding aims to adopt and sustain evidence-based programs that prevent and treat child maltreatment. Eligible organizations must have two years of audited financial statements and work with accredited groups. The grant prioritizes innovative solutions and advocacy to improve child welfare systems, ensuring effective support for children and families at risk.

Overview

NOTE: The Duke Endowment has introduced a new pre-application process for the Child and Family Well-Being program area. Within 30 days of receiving your pre-application, The Duke Endowment will either invite you to submit an application for the upcoming grant cycle, or inform you that your project does not align with current priorities, thereby concluding the process. Program Area: Child & Family Well-being We fund implementation support for public and private child- and family-serving agencies to adopt and sustain evidence-based and evidence-informed programs shown to prevent or treat child maltreatment. Challenge Several programs in the United States regularly gather and share evidence of their positive impact and outcomes for children. Historically, replication of these evidence-based programs in communities has failed to reproduce the outcomes or local capacity to sustain the programs. We believe that failure often can be traced to inadequate implementation support and inattention to continuous improvement. Approach Child and Family Well-Being has adopted the implementation framework developed by the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) to sustain and scale evidence-based programs for preventing and treating child abuse and neglect. Implementation support consists of activities designed to help put defined programs into practice. Strategies Support Implementation for Tested Programs: We fund implementation support for projects that adopt and sustain evidence-based or ‑informed models shown to prevent or treat child abuse and neglect and enhance well-being. ​“Implementation” refers to activities that are designed to put defined programs into practice. An active implementation framework answers the questions of what needs to be done (effective interventions), how to establish what needs to be done in practice, who will do the work to accomplish positive outcomes and where will effective interventions and implementation thrive. Rather than letting change happen, we work with organizations and agencies to make change happen for children and families of all races and ethnicities. Commit to Innovation: We recognize the lack of evidence-based or ‑informed models for the range of issues children and families face and the diverse populations served. If we did not commit to innovation, we would miss opportunities to identify programs that improve outcomes. We support grantees in developing and testing innovative, tailored, data-driven approaches. We encourage models that specifically look at risks and solutions through the lens of race. Advocate for Improvement: Many dedicated, knowledgeable professionals work in the child welfare system, but systemic challenges can inhibit their effectiveness. We use our resources and relationships to support advocacy and communications strategies that speed improvement of the prevention, early intervention and foster care systems. We believe that by working closely with government agencies and nonprofit organizations that reflect the communities served, we can enhance the spread of information and facilitate conversations within communities.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Child and Family Well-Being works through accredited organizations and other nonprofit groups in North Carolina and South Carolina.Target population: children, youth and families who have either experienced child abuse or neglect or those at imminent risk of experiencing child maltreatment. For residential facilities, foster care programs and adoption placement services, we recognize accreditation by the Council on Accreditation or the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.Eligible organizations must have two years of audited financial statements.

Ineligibility

Programs for child care, early education, or afterschool are ineligible for grant funding.Grants are not available for public schools.Residential facilities outside the Carolinas are ineligible for funding.We do not support startups.We do not support congregate care. Providers may offer congregate care services as part of a service array but our dollars go towards other aspects of the array, such as foster care, therapeutic foster care, adoption services, prevention, and early intervention services.