Our Approach
We fund the research, frameworks, creative pilots, and community access that children's institutions, clinicians, and families need.
How Our Work Creates Change
Research generates evidence. Evidence informs frameworks and standards. Frameworks guide how children's digital products are designed, evaluated, and used. Better products lead to better outcomes for children and families. Community access ensures those outcomes are not limited by income or geography.
We do not build products. We fund the work that should come before products are built.
Research Partnerships
We fund research partnerships with children's hospitals and academic institutions that study how media, technology, and AI affect children's development and family wellbeing. Our current research collaborations span pediatric sleep and screen use, early childhood development, developmental screening, digital wellness assessment in pediatric care pathways, and the evidence base for media-based preventative interventions. Together, these partnerships are building the body of evidence that should inform how children's digital products are designed, evaluated, and used.
Our Funded Programs
Beyond research, the Foundation funds three areas of work that turn evidence into action.
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AI is reshaping what children encounter on screens faster than the research or regulatory landscape can respond. AI-generated content, AI companions, recommendation algorithms, and adaptive learning tools are reaching children with no evidence-based frameworks governing how they should be designed or evaluated.
The Foundation funds the development of ethical guidelines and evidence-based frameworks for AI in children's digital environments. Our goal is to ensure that ethical AI research is central to how the next generation of children's technology is designed, deployed, and governed.
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We fund pilot creative projects that prove media designed around developmental science can be built. Content and interactive experiences developed in collaboration with researchers, not reverse-engineered from engagement metrics.
Creative partners include award-winning talent from Disney, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Apple TV, and Paramount. The Foundation underwrites early creative development before commercial revenue can sustain it. These pilots serve a dual purpose: they produce creative work families can use, and they prove that evidence-based media is viable. Without the proof-of-concept, the market will not follow
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We fund programs that ensure evidence-based media and technology reach the families who need them most. Current and planned access programs serve Head Start programs, under-resourced school districts, and community health settings.
Research should translate into real-world benefit regardless of income or geography.
Research Focus Areas
Our research priorities are informed by where the evidence gaps are largest and where the Foundation's work can have the most impact.
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How screen-based media and technology affect children's sleep patterns, and what evidence-based interventions can improve outcomes.
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How digital media exposure during the first years of life affects cognitive, emotional, and social development.
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How AI-driven technologies affect children's development and wellbeing, and the evidence base for ethical frameworks governing AI in children's spaces.
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Whether media designed around developmental science can function as a preventative behavioral health intervention across clinical, educational, and home settings.