Cradle Kalamazoo believes that every child deserves a first birthday. Unfortunately the reality in our community is that not every child is making it to their first year celebration. Cradle Kalamazoo believes that we can do better. The YWCA is leading this initiative which has a long term goal of creating zero disparities in infant mortality and ensuring all our children, especially children of color, have equal opportunity to succeed and thrive in life.

Cradle Kalamazoo is driven by the need to create a generational impact on child well-being and is implementing an intentional strategy to address the root causes of infant mortality and racial disparities in birth outcomes. Your funding supports: collaboration among Cradle’s 30 partner organization, safe sleep and reproductive health education, staff equity training and development, and intentional engagement with community members.

Equity and Education are two key pillars to the work of the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. Cradle Kalamazoo believes that in order to make an impact on equity and education in our community, we must look at improving infant mortality and birth outcomes. Research shows that low birth weight and prematurity, which are some of the leading causes of infant mortality in Kalamazoo, are correlated with poor educational and employment achievements. The persistence of disparities in birth outcomes is greatly impacting the educational disparities for children of color in Kalamazoo. Since development during pregnancy and early child development (0-5 years) is the foundation to success, reducing the infant mortality rate is needed to create a more equitable community.

Note To Our Donor Advisors:
You’ve already shown your love for this community by creating an Advised Fund at the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. Through Partners in Philanthropy, we offer you an opportunity to demonstrate that love again by supporting one or more of the projects highlighted with a grant suggestion from the fund you established. The programs shared in this publication are among the recent funding requests we’ve received from local nonprofit organizations.

To support this program, download the grant suggestion form here and select Orchestra Rouh or make a grant suggestion using Kalamazoo Connect at https://connect.kalfound.org.