Dear Friends,

We hope your 2024 was enriching and fulfilling! As we reflect on last year, a year marked by growth, resilience, and deepened partnerships, we are grateful for your unwavering collaboration and support. This past year saw blossoming new collaborations, as well as continued innovative efforts to support scalable programs across a wide range of important topics.

Last year, we expanded our work in teen mental health by doubling down on supporting parents and school professionals on the topic of social media. We launched a new version of the website Your Brain on Social Media, designed to provide parents and caregivers comprehensive, up-to-date news and resources from trusted sources, peer-reviewed research, and expert advice on how to effectively navigate raising children in a social media-dense world. We are particularly excited about the collaboration between Your Brain on Social Media and Dr. Stuart Ablon, Child and Adolescent Psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Founder of Think:Kids. We partnered with Dr. Ablon to create resources that help parents engage in constructive conversations with their children about social media. We also hosted a panel discussion featuring Dr. Ablon, Dr. Jill Walsh, researcher and professor at Boston University, and Julie Scelfo , Founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction (M.A.M.A.). The diverse expertise of our panel offered valuable insights into the challenges young people face on social media and provided parents with practical steps to support their children. We encourage you to check out these resources if you are a parent (or know a parent) who is looking for ways to collaborate with their kids on the topic of social media!

Your Brain on Social Media

Combining our work in K-12 education with our initiatives in social media and mental health, in 2024 we began to tackle the impact of social media and cell phones in schools, recognizing the critical role they play in students’ learning environments and lives more broadly. In May, we partnered with Attorney General Andrea Campbell and her office to bring together local school leaders and experts to discuss the challenges and solutions related to social media's impact on student well-being and school culture at large. With active lawsuits against both Meta and Tiktok alleging the platforms’ harmful impacts on youth mental health – and similar lawsuits filed by Attorney Generals across the country – the MA Attorney General’s office is deeply invested in holding these platforms accountable for their impact on young people. This event, which included leaders in education in Massachusetts, marked the beginning of a broader initiative to hear directly from parents, educators, school leaders, and students about their experiences with cell phones and social media in schools, and to explore what resources and supports are most needed. The first result of this work is a tool kit for educators, which will be released to school districts at the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents’s annual meeting at the end of January 2025.

Collaboration with MA Attorney General’s Office

This is a fun one! Last year we partnered with the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail (BWHT) to help them grow their impact and outreach. Founded in 1989, BWHT celebrates the past accomplishments of remarkable women in Boston, claiming their rightful place in Boston’s history. This group of female educators has worked with students, researchers, historians, community activists, and cultural institutions to create more than 20 walking trails in Boston that feature over 300 women whose contributions have shaped the city and beyond. In 2024, BWHT secured 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, and we have supported the organization to develop a more formal structure that enables long-term growth and sustainability. We have worked with the BWHT Board to strengthen its capacity by recruiting new members and launched the organization’s first large-scale capital campaign. Together, we have also relaunched a new website, built a following on Instagram, and partnered with museums and historical houses featured on the trail for a “behind the scenes” look into history. Additionally, we collaborated to launch BWHT’s first-ever trail markers as part of the Sidewalk Stories project in Dorchester and Jamaica Plain, which were highlighted in the Dorchester Reporter and the JP Business & Professional Association meeting and newsletter. In 2025, we’re excited to support BWHT’s growth as they expand their footprint and impact, continue their capital campaign, and prepare to hire their first executive director.

Boston Women’s Heritage Trail

2024 was also a year of continuing to support long standing collaborators. As you may recall, in 2021, we partnered with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Greater Boston Legal Services, Children’s HealthWatch, Massachusetts Association for Community Action, and Boston Tax Help Coalition to launch FindYourFunds.org. This centralized tool has connected over 500,000 Massachusetts residents with essential benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, returning over $12 million to families. In 2024, we proudly transitioned stewardship of FindYourFunds.org to Children’s HealthWatch, exemplifying our commitment to incubating transformative approaches that drive meaningful support for families. This partnership marks an exciting new phase, ensuring long-term support for Massachusetts families in identifying and accessing vital benefits.

Find Your Funds

We also continued our deep partnership with Achilles International Boston, an inclusive running group that start their runs at our office on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings each week. Participation in Achilles weekly runs and events is at an all-time high, with 105 athletes and over 900 guides, as well as 5 athletes participating in the Boston Marathon. In 2024, the Shah Foundation team also collaborated closely to host a fundraiser in which Achilles participants and community members were invited to watch the Boston Bruins play the Florida Panthers with former Bruins player and Achilles International runner Zdeno Chara. The event raised thousands of dollars for Achilles’ Boston chapter, supporting their mission of transforming the lives of athletes with disabilities through athletic programs and social connection.

Achilles International Boston

Additionally, since 2020, our collaboration with the Wonderfund has set a new benchmark for trauma-informed design in Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) facilities. Together, we reshaped 154 family visitation rooms across 17 DCF sites into healing environments filled with soft lighting and fabrics, soothing wall colors, calming visual art, and age-appropriate games and books. This year, we proudly completed our final renovations in Lynn, Lawrence, and New Bedford, marking a major milestone in this work. With the Wonderfund’s dedication, trauma-informed design is now standard in new DCF buildouts, demonstrating the lasting impact of public-private collaboration to a lasting legacy of compassion-driven design in government facilities.

Wonderfund

We continued to support our partners at EdNavigator to help them expand partnerships with pediatric clinics, hospitals, and healthcare agencies, offering referral-based support to families facing educational challenges. We supported EdNavigator in identifying sustainable government funding sources and catalyzing a partnership with NeighborHealth (formerly East Boston Neighborhood Health Center), creating a model relationship and a pathway for expansion into additional communities.

EdNavigator

School Food, Local Lunchbox, and the Obama Foundation

We were also thrilled to continue our support of Local Lunchbox in partnership with the Obama Foundation as they continue to support and scale USDA-funded summer meals in Chicago in partnership with the Metro Chicago YMCA.

2024 was also a year of engaging events and inspiring conversations with students, community members, and thought leaders. In January, we hosted a book signing event with Harvard Medical School Professor and Director of Nutritional & Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Uma Naidoo, for her book, Calm Your Mind with Food: A Revolutionary Guide to Controlling Your Anxiety. This was a night of engaging and insightful conversations, centered around food and wellbeing. The following month, we welcomed Harvard Kennedy School Professor Todd Rogers to celebrate his book, Writing for Busy Readers. Attendees had the opportunity to learn key strategies for effective communication and engage directly with Professor Rogers about his insights on crafting concise, impactful messages in an era of information overload and limited attention spans.

Inspiring Conversations

Building on this series of thought-provoking events, we were invited, for the fourth consecutive year, to join Harvard Business School Professor Mitch Weiss’s Public Entrepreneurship course as guest speakers. Here, our work with My Way Cafe was highlighted as a Harvard Business School case in how philanthropy can de-risk innovation, allowing government to more efficiently test bold, new solutions.

Harvard Business School Case Study - My Way Cafe

Scaling bold solutions often requires better understanding of their effectiveness. In 2024, our work from the past several years was featured in peer-reviewed academic publications, enabling pilot initiatives we incubated to gain broader recognition and inspire replication. In February, a peer-reviewed journal article in Psychology in Schools recognized the positive outcomes of web-based cognitive behavioral training for educators, a body of work which became Teach for Wellness and now lives as part of the The Teacher Collaborative. Additionally in July, JAMA published an article on the health impacts of our Chelsea Eats cash transfer program, highlighting a decrease in emergency room visits and an increase in outpatient visits to subspecialists among Chelsea Eats recipients. This finding illustrates the potential of cash transfers to increase access to healthcare and lead to cost savings for communities.

Peer-Reviewed Articles of Our Work

Adding a narrative dimension to this work, Nixon’s Reversal, a powerful documentary produced as part of the Chelsea Eats initiative, received an Emmy nomination in the Documentary category in 2024. The film explores the historical context of guaranteed income policies, shedding light on President Nixon’s journey and its lasting impact on families, showcasing the broader implications of income support programs.

And, this just in…Nixon’s Reversal was the winner of a Motion Award!

An Emmy Nomination!

In line with our commitment to creative storytelling and expanding community engagement, we continued to produce and grow the audiences of our podcasts, Last Night at School Committee and Deep Dives. First launched in 2020, Last Night at School Committee has continued to grow week-after-week, keeping families informed about the impacts of Boston Public Schools's decisions for their children and helping shape the conversation at the district and city level about the key issues facing students. In addition to these recaps, Deep Dives provided key insights into the most pressing issues facing students, families and teachers across the country through interviews with local and national experts on issues such as enrollment, standardized testing, and helping students navigate the digital world.

Podcasts

In 2024, we also continued our multi-year collaborations with Arizona State University Prep Global, Khan World School, and local educators to develop new education models that engage students through competency-based and personalized learning. Similar models in other states and countries have been associated with unprecedented growth in student proficiency in math, reading, and language arts. Unfortunately, this initiative uncovered significant barriers to education innovation in the state of Massachusetts, including restrictive policies around student seat time, outdated accountability measures, and a lack of innovation-focused staff and leadership at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education. At the same time, we are alarmed by deep-rooted challenges in our state’s academic system, including troubling academic proficiency as evidenced by incredibly disappointing and concerning MCAS results and the widening in proficiency between high and low-income districts, as well as severe student disengagement highlighted by high rates of chronic absenteeism. These challenges highlight that now more than ever, there is a critical need for advancing innovative educational models that seek to close achievement gaps and engage students in new and exciting ways. We learn from failure and are excited to see new energy in Massachusetts, aspiring to important changes in the way we support and educate our students.

They Don’t All Go the Way We Hope They Will Go

As we look back on 2024, we are filled with gratitude for the remarkable individuals, partners, and communities we work with every day. Your continued support and engagement fuel our commitment to advancing innovative solutions that make a difference in education, health, and beyond. Moving into the new year, we are excited to build on this momentum, pushing the boundaries of what is possible and striving to make a lasting difference. Thank you for being an integral part of this mission.

We wish you a very happy and healthy new year, filled with love and joy!

Warmly,
Jill, Niraj, Ross & the Shah Foundation team

2024 Year In Review