Our Impact
The Joel I. Ward Charitable Foundation supports organizations working to advance a more just, healthy, and sustainable world. Through strategic grantmaking across our focus areas, we invest in initiatives that address pressing challenges, expand opportunity, and strengthen communities. The grants below represent our portfolio of funded projects.
Grants Awarded
4
FOCUS AREAS SUPPORTED
2
committed
$1.16M
LOCATIONS REACHED
X
IMPACT HIGHLIGHT
Creating Pathways to Lasting Stability
Family Promise prevents and ends homelessness for families and helps them build lasting stability through a community-based response. Learn about our partnership below.
FUNDED PROJECTS
In 2026, the Foundation completed our inaugural grantmaking cycle, supporting organizations working across multiple focus areas.
Child Development
Grant Amount: $8,321 | Grant Period: 2026 – 2027
Girls on the Run Las Vegas serves elementary and middle school girls through an evidence-based after-school program, with approximately 75% of participants attending Title I schools. Through physical activity, team discussions, community service projects, and a culminating 5K event, participants build confidence, empathy, healthy habits, and other essential life skills. This grant supports participation for 30 girls during one program season, helping ensure they have access to experiences that foster resilience, goal-setting, and lifelong well-being.
Grant Amount: $824,425 | Grant Period: 2026 - 2028
Fiscal sponsorship provided by Institute for Child Success
Help Me Grow is the nation's only evidence-informed, replicated early childhood system model designed to connect and strengthen the many sectors that serve young children. The Model promotes healthy child development by ensuring every family can access guidance, resources, and supports through developmental promotion, early identification of concerns, and seamless connection to community services. This grant supports the next phase of national implementation, including expanded capacity for local affiliates and the development of a unified measurement framework to strengthen outcomes across the Help Me Grow Network.
Grant Amount: $35,000 | Grant Period: 2026 – 2027
Fiscal sponsorship provided by Even Ground
Thandukwazi is a year-round foundational learning program serving approximately 250 underserved children in Grades R–3 (ages 5–9) in rural South Africa. Through story-based, hands-on learning, nutritious meals, and home visits, the program helps children develop foundational literacy, numeracy, curiosity, critical thinking, and social-emotional skills. This grant supports 18 months of programming, including strengthening the implementation and tracking of children's learning outcomes across a full program year.
Equitable Opportunity
Grant Amount: $300,000 | Grant Period: 2026 – 2028
Family Promise helps families with children overcome housing instability and homelessness through a continuum of proven, community-based solutions tailored to each family’s needs. Through its Stabilization Program, the organization provides individualized coaching, case management, and connections to community resources that help families remain safely housed and build lasting stability. This grant will expand the Stabilization Program, allowing Family Promise to reach thousands more families and help parents provide the safety, security, and consistency their children need to thrive.
Health Environment
Grant Amount: $xx,000 | Grant Period: 20xx – 20xx
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Global Health
Grant Amount: $xx,000 | Grant Period: 20xx – 20xx
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Developmental Disabilities
Grant Amount: $xx,000 | Grant Period: 20xx – 20xx
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Indigenous Communities
Grant Amount: $xx,000 | Grant Period: 20xx – 20xx
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Democracy
Grant Amount: $xx,000 | Grant Period: 20xx – 20xx
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Civil Rights
Grant Amount: $xx,000 | Grant Period: 20xx – 20xx
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MEASURING Impact
The Foundation evaluates progress through annual and final reporting, ongoing engagement with grantee partners, and review of project outcomes. As our grant portfolio grows, we will share updates, lessons learned, and insights from the work we support.