Children's Defense Fund Campaigns
The Children’s Defense Fund seeks to educate the public to threats facing children in America, and to solutions that improve the odds for children to reach their potential. The Black Community Crusade for Children (BCCC), Cradle to Prison Pipeline®, Protect Children Not Guns and Be Careful What You Cut campaigns — were designed to mobilize child advocates by providing key information and tools to create meaningful change — in their communities, online, and at the national level. Learn more about CDF campaigns and how you can make a difference.
Road to Freedom Campaign

Research shows that only 48 percent of children living in poverty are ready to learn at age five, compared to 75 percent of children from families with moderate and high incomes. Summer learning loss makes that achievement gap grow larger each year. Today, you can do something about it. Help pave the way for our most vulnerable children to reach their full potential. Join the Road to Freedom fundraising campaign.
Road to Freedom is a social fundraising campaign for the CDF Freedom Schools® program to help vulnerable children in low-income communities become local leaders. By becoming a fundraiser you can help more children on their journey to Literacy, Leadership, and Social Advocacy . . . and toward becoming your community’s best citizens!
Get started now and create your own Road to Freedom fundraising campaign page today.
Protect Children Not Guns
One child or teen dies or is injured from guns every 30 minutes. Gun violence saturates our children’s lives. More children and teens die from guns every three days than died in the Newtown massacre. The number of children under five killed by guns in 2012 was higher than the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty that same year. We can do better. Join us in our campaign to stand up, speak out, and organize with urgency and persistence until all legislators at the national, state and local levels protect children instead of guns. Every child’s life is sacred, and it is long past time that we pass common-sense gun safety regulations to give all children in America a safe start in life.
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Cradle to Prison Pipeline
CDF's vision is to dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® that leaves a Black boy born in 2001 with a one in three chance of going to prison in his lifetime, and a Latino boy born the same year with a one in six chance of the same fate. CDF seeks to replace this pipeline to detention and mass incarceration with a powerful pathway to college and successful adulthood. Opportunity gaps begin at birth. CDF works to level the playing field through early intervention and prevention, increasing supports and services such as quality early childhood development and education and affordable, comprehensive health and mental health coverage. We work to keep children in school and learning by reforming school discipline policies and practices and promoting positive school climates.
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Be Careful What You Cut
Cutting children from the budget now will cost us later. This campaign is about bringing the real dangers of cutting child investments into sharp focus to build the public will and make the economic case to protect children from budget cuts. It’s a simple calculation, really. Protect now or pay later.
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