We were founded by a
child welfare administrator.
In 2019, Kim Eckel, Manager of Strategic Initiatives for Allegheny County’s child welfare system, looked for a way to help families facing financial crises that could prevent them from having to engage with child protective services. Unable to find a solution, she founded Footbridge for Families and won BNY Mellon’s social innovation challenge in order bring the solution to scale.
Kim Eckel
Founder and CEO
“There are significant gaps in our country’s patchworked safety net of government and non-profit programming. Child welfare is often presented as the solution, in the name of protecting children, due to the lack of options available to help families facing financial crisis. This is an issue facing child welfare systems across the country.”
Learn MoreWE FILL IN THE GAP
Flexible, rapid support when no other program will work.
WE SAVE TAXPAYER DOLLARS
When needs are met, expensive systems like child welfare and homeless services are avoided.
WE PROTECT CHILDREN
Caregiver stress impacts children’s development and wellbeing. We provide relief for everyone in the family.
With our platform:
1) We enable our trusted network of referral partners to post the needs of families with whom they work.
2) We provide community members a way to donate to a fund that they can trust will be used to support families in crisis that lack other options. Monies go directly to the third-party organizations that families need to pay.
3) Corporations, insurance plans and government entities that seek to support their own clients can use Footbridge as their tool for localized and targeted giving.
Thank You to Our Supporters
