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The chance that a child born today will earn more than their parents by adulthood is less than 50%.

Upward Momentum seeks to change this by creating opportunity across communities and through generations. Our goal is to increase economic mobility for all people 
deeply affected by systemic barriers to opportunity in measurable ways.

What is economic mobility?

Economic Success
Power and Autonomy
Belonging
At Upward Momentum, we consider economic mobility to be more than just economic success or income and wealth. Economic mobility is the freedom to achieve economic success, power and autonomy, and belonging regardless of race, gender, geography, or background. We want to help people build momentum to move themselves and their families upward by breaking cycles and creating more opportunity.

Barriers to achieving economic mobility have been entrenched for decades and are growing in the Midwest, especially in Missouri. Philanthropic capital with a willingness to take strategic risks, form partnerships across organizations and communities, and make long-term investments, can enable initiatives that focus on fundamental change over generations.

Our Approach

We take a partnership-based approach to our work, with community members with lived expertise, experts in economic mobility, and our investors making decisions together to develop a strategy and identify investment opportunities.

Collaboration drives transformation. This core belief is what shapes our structure in which everyone – staff, founding partners, core partners, and community advisory panels – learn from each other. We work together to shape a powerful approach to systems change that will help everyone.

Each strategy and solution we explore will be shaped by three dimensions of action to build momentum for generational mobility.
  • When to Act
    Identify the moments in a life’s course that matter
  • What to Do
    Find what actions work to break through the systemic barriers in those moments
  • How to Achieve it
    Discover and apply the levers and methods available to achieve scalable impact

OUR WORK

We are starting in Missouri not only because it’s our home, but because Missouri represents the diversity of our country like no other state. We aim to find and share successful solutions here that could be scalable and replicated in other states. Missouri spans from urban innovation districts to rural communities where traditions run deep. It is a unique place where East and West, and North and South meet.

Upward Momentum focuses on three pillars of investment for economic mobility.
  • Caring for Our Families: Re-center and re-imagine what it means to “care” for families and their economic well-being.
  • Navigating Work: Navigational and wrap-around supports that improve the odds of people successfully accessing and interacting with key systems in the labor market.
  • Bridging Divides: Help leaders and institutions understand common issues, align resources and efforts, and collectively tackle issues at scale.

See our grantees and projects below.

 

Kids Win Missouri

Kids Win Missouri is a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to improving the well-being of Missouri children. We are helping to extend critical work being done in Kansas City, St. Louis, and other communities to counties throughout the state to help get more childcare seats so parents can go to work and kids can have a safe environment in which to learn and grow.

Missouri Women’s Business Center

The Missouri Women’s Business Center, a program of Central Missouri Community Action, provides small business development assistance for entrepreneurs in Mid-Missouri. We are helping to expand its microlending project for small entrepreneurs and help people in struggling places get businesses off the ground and start creating good jobs in their communities.

Open Call for Bridging Divides

We want to hear from community-led, community-driven nonprofit organizations in Missouri with a demonstrated capability to advance upward mobility for people and communities facing the greatest need. We have allocated $2 million for this first open call, with each selected organization receiving a $200,000 grant to support and amplify their efforts to create lasting, transformative change in Missouri communities.

About Us

Upward Momentum is a philanthropic fund and collaborative for philanthropists and community members who are investing in bold, transformative interventions and partnerships that aim to address systemic inequities and improve opportunity for greater economic mobility for all.

Read our press release

Read a statement from our investors

Who is involved

Let’s Work 
Together

We want to work with you to invest in your community.

Starting November 19, 2024, we encourage organizations, individuals, and non-profits working to improve lives to submit a request for funding to the open call for proposals. Submissions will be accepted until midnight on January 7, 2025.

Learn about our in-person kickoff event in Columbia, MO here.

Check back for more information on future in-person events around Missouri!

Upward Momentum is looking for community organizations to work together to advance economic mobility in Missouri.

This open call aims to support initiatives that are looking to grow or expand promising work that can help leaders and institutions collectively drive catalytic change and sustainable impact.

Proposals should aim to bridge across rural and urban communities through solutions that are effective in both environments.

Ten organizations from across the state will be selected based on the published criteria.

We have allocated $2 million for this first open call, with each selected organization receiving a $200,000 grant to support and amplify their efforts to create lasting, transformative change in Missouri communities.

Read more details on the application process and criteria. APPLY HERE

Stay Connected!

To connect with us or learn more about joining, please contact [email protected].