The U.S. Soccer Foundation was established in 1994 and serves as the major charitable arm of soccer in the United States.
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of eleven players. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by moving the ball beyond the goal line into the opposing goal.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
The mission of the U.S. Soccer Foundation is to enhance, assist and grow the sport of soccer in the United States, with a special emphasis on underserved communities.
The Foundation is a leader in sports-based youth development and is using soccer as a vehicle for social change among youth in urban areas. It provides nationally recognized programs that are proven to deliver positive health and social outcomes. The Foundation's innovative, accessible and affordable initiatives offer safe, urban environments in which both boys and girls thrive.
Sports-Based Youth Development or SBYD is a theory and practice model for direct youth service. Grounded in youth development, sports psychology, and youth sports practice, SBYD aims to use the sport experience to contribute to positive youth development. Sports-based youth development is similar to sport for social development.
Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded over $57 million in financial support to soccer organizations and field-building initiatives nationwide. Through the Passback program, the Foundation has collected and redistributed close to 900,000 pieces of soccer equipment for children in need worldwide. In addition, the Foundation currently providing children in 20 cities across the country with physical activity, nutrition education and mentorship through our Soccer for Success program.
Programs
Soccer for Success is the U.S. Soccer Foundation’s free soccer-based afterschool program that uses soccer as a tool to combat childhood obesity and promote healthy lifestyles for children in under-resourced urban communities. The Foundation partners with community-based organizations across the country to operate Soccer for Success sites – providing thousands of children with free afterschool programming three times per week for the entire school year.
The Safe Places to Play program provides grants to organizations to help them build or enhance a field space in their communities.
Passback is the U.S. Soccer Foundation's soccer equipment collection and distribution program. Through the Passback Program, new and gently used soccer gear is collected by organizations, teams, clubs, and individuals and is redistributed across the globe to help underserved communities play soccer.
The Congressional Soccer Match is an annual soccer game played each summer by members of the United States Congress. The game began in 2013 and in its current format in 2014. In the match, the Republicans and Democrats form separate teams and play against each other. The event is hosted by the United States Soccer Foundation and generally features members of the Congressional Soccer Caucus, and former professional players. The money raised from the match is donated to local charities.
Grants
The U.S. Soccer Foundation awards grants on an annual basis to support both soccer programs and field-building initiatives in underserved areas nationwide. Grants are provided to support all aspects of the beautiful game - from assisting programs with operational costs to creating Safe Places to Play. Click here to learn more about the Foundation's grants process.
Grants are non-repayable funds or products disbursed or given by one party, often a government department, corporation, foundation or trust, to a recipient, often a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. In order to receive a grant, some form of "Grant Writing" often referred to as either a proposal or an application is required.
Advocacy
The U.S. Soccer Foundation is located in Washington, D.C. and leads advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill and with Executive Branch agencies for the entire soccer community. The U.S. Soccer Foundation’s advocacy efforts focus on using sport as a vehicle to promote youth development, health and wellness, and positive social change. This includes combating childhood obesity, preventing youth delinquency, and providing youth with safe and accessible places to play — a critical need particularly in underserved communities.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington or D.C., is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, the first president of the United States and a Founding Father. As the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city is also one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually.
Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., and with roughly 35,000 people in just under 2 square miles (5 km2), it is also one of the most densely populated.
Childhood obesity is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child's health or well-being. As methods to determine body fat directly are difficult, the diagnosis of obesity is often based on BMI. Due to the rising prevalence of obesity in children and its many adverse health effects it is being recognized as a serious public health concern. The term overweight rather than obese is often used when discussing childhood obesity, especially in open discussion, as it is less stigmatizing.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) is a foundation focused on improving the well-being of American children. The foundation's goals are to build better futures for disadvantaged children, and their families, in the United States.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is the United States' largest philanthropy focused solely on health; it is based in Princeton, New Jersey. The foundation's goal, through the use of grants, is "to improve the health and health care of all Americans." The foundation has $11 billion in assets, generating grants approaching $500 million a year.
The United States African Development Foundation (USADF) is an independent United States government agency that provides grants of up to $250,000 for operational assistance, enterprise expansion and market linkage to early stage agriculture, energy, and youth-led enterprises that benefit underserved communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The California Community Foundation (CCF) is a philanthropic organization located in Los Angeles, California. Foundation Center, an independent nonprofit organization, ranks it among the top 100 foundations in the nation by asset size and total giving. Among all community foundations, CCF is 5th by total giving and 7th by asset size, as of the fiscal year that ended 6/30/12.
Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) is one of the largest student organizations at Harvard College, with more than 70 programs and 1,200 student volunteers. It is an independent student-run, staff supported public service and social justice organization providing a variety of services to the Greater Boston community. Each year, 20 elected student officers and the organization's Cabinet, made of the student directors of the many service programs, guide policy decisions and work with communities to provide services.
The Earth Island Institute is non-profit environmental group founded in 1982 by David Brower. Located in Berkeley, California, it supports activism around environmental issues through fiscal sponsorship that provides the administrative and organizational infrastructure for individual projects. As of 2010, Earth Island Institute's total net assets were $7.1 million.
After-school programs started in the early 1900s mainly just as supervision of students after the final school bell. Today, after-school programs do much more. There is a focus on helping students with school work but can be beneficial to students in other ways. An after-school program, today, will not limit its focus on academics but with a holistic sense of helping the student population. After-school programs started in the early 1900s mainly just as supervision of students after the final school bell. An after-school activity is any organized program that youth can participate in outside of the traditional school day. Some programs are run by a primary or secondary school, while others are run by externally funded non-profit or commercial organizations. After-school youth programs can occur inside a school building or elsewhere in the community, for instance at a community center, church, library, or park. After-school activities are a cornerstone of concerted cultivation, which is a style of parenting that emphasizes children gaining leadership experience and social skills through participating in organized activities. Such children are believed by proponents to be more successful in later life, while others consider too many activities to indicate overparenting. While some research has shown that structured after-school programs can lead to better test scores, improved homework completion, and higher grades, further research has questioned the effectiveness of after-school programs at improving youth outcomes such as externalizing behavior and school attendance. Additionally, certain activities or programs have made strides in closing the achievement gap, or the gap in academic performance between white students and students of color as measured by standardized tests. Though the existence of after-school activities is relatively universal, different countries implement after-school activities differently, causing after-school activities to vary on a global scale.
Kentucky Child Now (KCN), founded in 2000, is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the welfare of children throughout the state of Kentucky. It is the Kentucky affiliate of America's Promise, an organization started by Colin Powell in 1997 for child welfare. The organization operates around the fundamental principle that youth need access to five resources for success: "1) caring adults; 2) safe places; 3) a healthy start; 4) marketable skills; and 5) opportunities to serve".
The National Football League (NFL) Foundation, previously known as NFL Charities, is a non-profit making charitable organization, established by the member clubs of the National Football League (NFL) in 1973. It enables the clubs to collectively make grants to charitable and worthwhile causes at a national level.
The Student National Medical Association (SNMA), established in 1964, is the oldest and largest independent, student-run organization focused on the needs and concerns of black medical students in the United States. It was established as a subdivision of the National Medical Association in 1964 by medical students from Howard University and Meharry Medical College. The organization is committed to supporting current and future underrepresented minority medical students, addressing the needs of underserved communities, and increasing the number of clinically excellent, culturally competent and socially conscious physicians.
The Afterschool Alliance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization in the United States whose mission is "to ensure that all children have access to affordable, quality afterschool programs." It uses communications and advocacy strategies to increase public and private investments in afterschool programs. The Alliance serves as both a central resource center for afterschool programs, as well as a public advocate. The nation's leading voice for afterschool, the Afterschool Alliance is the only organization dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of afterschool programs and advocating for more afterschool investments. The Afterschool Alliance works with the Administration, the U.S. Congress, governors, mayors and advocates across the country. The Afterschool Alliance has more than 25,000 afterschool program partners and its publications reach more than 65,000 interested individuals every month.
Futures Without Violence is a non-profit organization with offices in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Boston, United States, with the goal of ending domestic and sexual violence. Futures Without Violence is involved in community-based programs, developing educational materials, and in public policy work.
The Everychild Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation based in Pacific Palisades, California. It awards a single grant of up to $1 million each year to a non-profit organization within Los Angeles County that helps children affected by disease, abuse, neglect, poverty or disability. The Foundation has awarded more than $15 million in grants that served over 1 million Los Angeles children.
The Heckscher Foundation for Children is a New York City-focused private foundation that provides grants to underserved New York City youth. Often, the foundation's grant-giving takes the form of program support, capacity-building, capital projects and general operating support.
The Texas Hunger Initiative (THI) is a capacity-building, collaborative project dedicated to developing and implementing strategies to end hunger through policy, education, research, community organizing and community development. THI convenes federal, state and local government stakeholders with nonprofits, faith communities and business leaders to create an efficient system of accountability that increases food security in Texas.
Sport for Social Development is a method of bringing about social change through the use of sports. In the U.S. this is commonly referred to as Sports-Based Youth Development. Sport refers to the physical activity and development is any individual, health, social, and economic benefits. Sport for is used as a tool for peace and development. The programs use sport to help children learn lifelong skills as an incentive for the children to improve their scholarship. Sport is used as a tool to reach personal and community goals. Most organizations utilizing this method are geared towards underprivileged children and teenagers in urban areas.
Collective Impact (CI) is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration. The concept of collective impact was first articulated in the 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article Collective Impact, written by John Kania, Managing Director at FSG, and Mark Kramer, Kennedy School at Harvard and Co-founder FSG. Collective impact was chosen as the #2 philanthropy buzzword for 2011, and has been recognized by the White House Council for Community Solutions as an important framework for progress on social issues.
Heart to Heart Community Care is a non-profit, non-governmental charity in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China which provides services to migrant workers and their families. Registered in December, 2005 with the Yunnan Department of Civil Affairs, Heart to Heart uses a community-based social service approach, and in addition to providing a broad range of services, also participates in research and policy advocacy.
The Aman Foundation is a not for profit trust, based in Karachi, Pakistan, focused on catalyzing impactful solutions in Health and Education through direct interventions, convening powerful partnerships and advocating on behalf of the underserved people of Pakistan. A social impact enterprise with an entrepreneurial mindset and a humanitarian heart, The Aman Foundation was founded in 2008, with a contribution of USD 100 million by Mr Arif and Ms Fayeeza Naqvi, with the aim of giving fellow Pakistanis healthcare support and skills to reshape their lives and redirect their destinies. A local, not-for-profit trust, the foundation aspires to improve healthcare and education/skills through its direct interventions and supporting a number of high-impact organizations through its grant-giving initiative.
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