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?
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
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.
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When to Act
Identify the moments in a life’s course that matter
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What to Do
Find what actions work to break through the systemic barriers in those moments
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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.
Bridging Divides Open Call
Upward Momentum conducted an open call for strong proposals to advance economic mobility across the state of Missouri. Ten grantees have been selected and will receive $200,000 each as part of a $2 million investment in this inaugural cohort.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.
Who is involved
Let’s Work Together
We’re proud to announce the inaugural cohort of 10 grantees selected through our Bridging Divides open call process. Over the next year, each organization will receive a $200,000 grant to create shared solutions to overcome barriers to achieving economic mobility as well as strengthen their own programs to advance opportunity through collective learning and collaboration.
Stay tuned for more updates.
Upward Momentum is proud to support a new cohort of community organizations working together to advance economic mobility across Missouri.
Through our first open call, we identified and funded ten organizations that are expanding promising work to help leaders and institutions understand common issues, align resources and efforts, and collectively tackle obstacles to opportunity that reach as many families and individuals as possible. These grantees represent a wide range of communities and approaches, united by a commitment to bridging rural and urban divides and building solutions to improve economic mobility that work across diverse settings.
The process involved close collaboration with a set of seven independent Missourians to ensure each application received fair and consistent review. The applications were assessed across five areas, including track record of impact, focus on proven concepts, potential for scaling, community engagement and dialogue, and a commitment to collaboration.
Together, they are now collaborating, adapting strategies, and amplifying their efforts to create transformative change for more individuals and families in Missouri communities.
Click here to learn more about the selection process, grantees, and criteria.