Connecticut Voices for Children
Just Research. Just Action.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Connecticut faces significant threats as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its induced recession. Social determinants of health, such as poverty, have already substantially affected COVID-19 outcomes; Black and Latinx individuals in Connecticut have died at higher age-adjusted rates than white individuals. Our economic justice campaigns are more critical than ever because Connecticut faces the direst economic period in our state’s history since the Great Depression. Connecticut has one of the highest levels of economic inequality as well as one of the slowest levels of economic growth during a period of near-unprecedented economic inequality and slow economic growth in the U.S. as a whole. While challenges abound, we can and must do more to protect all Connecticut residents—not just those residents fortunate enough to have a job that allows them to save and build wealth, but also residents that are working multiple essential jobs and yet can barely make ends meet.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Family Economic Security
Family Economic Security—Today, the state’s income and wealth divides are greater than ever, but so much of a child’s well-being is rooted in family economic security. Children cannot thrive unless families do, which is why CT Voices prioritizes affordable housing, criminal justice, and fair employment as well as the intersectional issues of health, child welfare, and education.
Fiscal & Economics
Fiscal and Economics—Budgets are a clear reflection of what and who we value. CT Voices identifies and advocates for investments in children and families as the primary budget priority, but we also conduct research and work with stakeholders and partners in coalition to advance advocacy that support inclusive growth and a fair tax system within the state.
Emerging Issues
Emerging Issues—The world and state are changing rapidly and we recognize that to keep up with the pace of these changes, we must be nimble and adapt, and address issues and emergencies when they arise, which is why CT Voices identifies new, timely issues that are of the most emergent import to the well-being of the state’s children and families.
Where we work
Accreditations
Charity Navigator 2003
Awards
External reviews

Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
CT Voices envisions a thriving and equitable state where all children achieve their full potential. We are a research-based advocacy organization also known as a “think and do tank”- with an aim toward economic justice. Our mission is to provide trusted, quality research, recommendations, and advocacy that advance public policy and investments to improve the well-being of Connecticut’s children and families, specifically those that have been historically disadvantaged.
Our research and recommendations are fundamental to family economic security and the undergirding fiscal and economics. We work with impacted communities to build shared knowledge, co-create policies, and advance issue campaigns and advocacy. We believe that our state’s social and economic well-being depends upon the dismantling of policies that perpetuate poverty and criminalize poverty, as well as the creation of policies that advance inclusive growth policies that ensure pathways to opportunity for all our children, youth, and families.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To foster policy changes, CT Voices conducts research and analysis on a variety of challenges facing Connecticut’s children and families, including but not limited to education, health, housing, rights, justice, family economic security as well as tax and budget topics. We co-create policy recommendations with partners and share our knowledge with interested parties. We host informational forums that bring Connecticut and national leaders together to share “best practice” thinking on a variety of policy issues. Our research & policy reports are widely cited by community-based organizations, elected officials, and news media. Our policy priorities include Family Economic Security, Fiscal and Economics, and Emerging Issues.
Our values lead our strategy, and they are embedded in all aspects of our work. One of our core values is to be community-centered (the others being equity, integrity, impact, and learning mindset); we believe listening to multiple viewpoints is important but public policy discourse in Connecticut does not adequately include the voices of children and families impacted by public policy. In order to ensure we are executing our values, we engage directly with community members and amplify their voices in our work. CT Voices works through partnerships to share knowledge and collaborate where it makes sense. We build coalitions of community members and stakeholders invested in ensuring family economic security and growing Connecticut’s economy, turn them into movements, execute issue campaigns, and advance a comprehensive policy agenda.
CT Voices is a founding member of the CT Juvenile Justice Alliance, the CT Early Childhood Alliance, and Better Choices for CT. At the national level, Connecticut Voices is a state partner with a number of organizations that share our vision and values. But because policy change is often possible only through legislation, Connecticut Voices works to advance—through the Connecticut General Assembly and state agencies—the sound policy and budget choices necessary for the well-being of our youngest residents and their families, and Connecticut’s future.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
CT Voices brings together a talented staff with diverse backgrounds in law, community organizing, employment, public health, education, taxes, family economic security, housing, immigration, juvenile justice, early childhood development, and public policy. We are well situated to engage in the work we intend to undertake. Four of our five Senior Leadership Team members identify as people of color. We also have new capacity to execute comprehensive campaigns.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
At the highest level, we have helped to change the policy-setting culture in the state to become more data-driven and research grounded. Our consistent, credible, non-partisan voice has led to concrete policy changes.
More than 190,000 Connecticut low-income households now receive a strong boost from Connecticut's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—a policy that CT Voices advocated for since its inception. This credit for working families is a vital support that helps low-wage parents make ends meet and stay out of poverty.
Connecticut has begun the process of transforming its early care and education system to become more streamlined, integrated, and accessible to families. Through our research and advocacy work, we built support for the establishment of a Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, charged with coordinating the state's early care programs and improving access for children and parents. Within the K-12 system, our work has shed light on the correlation between school funding, relative educational opportunity, and actual student achievement.
We are particularly proud of our successful efforts to promote revenue-raising policies to ameliorate the state's large deficit and prevent drastic cuts to services that support the most vulnerable children and families. Lawmakers have adopted many of our recommendations, including the combined reporting of corporate income, a more progressive personal income tax, and an elevated cigarette tax. In addition, we led a successful effort to re-categorize unfunded pension liability outside of the constitutional spending cap, freeing hundreds of millions of dollars for spending on critical human services.
Additionally, our advocacy has helped to protect funding for critical programs, such as Care 4 Kids, School Readiness preschool programs, and School-Based Health Centers. Our research and advocacy also contributed to the ultimate restoration of parent eligibility in Medicaid (HUSKY A) to 155 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, which meant that 13,500 parents did not lose coverage. Our research and advocacy contributed to increased understanding of the challenges faced by children in state care and improvements in the child welfare system. Care 4 Kids also received a small increase that will be used to increase reimbursement rates and teacher pay. In the area of juvenile justice, we successfully advocated for increased funding for the Judicial Branch to provide an appropriate continuum of placements and services for justice-involved youth.
Despite challenges due to COVID-19, our extensive research and analysis supported 15 reports with fact-based policy recommendations co-created with partner organizations in 2020. We formed a fiscal coalition to build a statewide movement for fair taxes and published a comprehensive roadmap for an equitable recovery; our network has become more extensive than it has ever been. We will continue to expand our fiscal coalition and utilize our growing capacity to take a
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connecticut Voices for Children
Board of directorsas of 11/15/2022
Hector Glynn
The Village for Families and Children, Inc.
Term: 2024 - 2021
Ann Baker Pepe
Retired Director of Development at The Foote School
Nancy Roberts
Retired President of Connecticut Council for Philanthropy
Marcella Nunez-Smith
Yale School of Medicine
Laine Taylor
The Village for Families and Children, Inc.
Jean Adnopoz
Yale University Child Study Center
Leonard Jahad
Violence Intervention Program
Shenae Draughn
The Glendower Group, Inc.
Derrick Gordon
Yale School of Medicine
Fred McKinney
BJM Solutions, LLC
David Nee
Retired Philanthropy Leader
Enid Rey
BRAVE Consulting Solutions, LLC
Kim Russo
The Fund of Greater Hartford
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 01/25/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.