OUR MISSION
Families and Work Institute (FWI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that studies the changing workforce, family and community. As a preeminent think-tank, FWI is known for being ahead of the curve, identifying emerging issues, and then conducting rigorous research that often challenges common wisdom, provides insight and knowledge, and inspires and leads to change. Its purpose is to create research to live by.

OUR WORK
Families and Work Institute was co-founded in 1989 by Ellen Galinsky, currently president of the Institute, and Dana Friedman. Our work focuses on three major areas: the workforce/ workplace, youth and early childhood.

From its earliest beginnings, the Institute has had an enormous impact in creating and shaping the work life movement, not only by raising the awareness about work life issues with policymakers and thought leaders, including governors and presidents, but also by supporting agents of change in business, early childhood and youth development, education and community engagement.

The issues that Families and Work Institute tackles are broad and timely, affecting life on and off the job. Our current projects focus on:

• the effective workplace;
• leaders in a global economy
• comparisons among working conditions in the E.U. and U.S.;
• talent management;
• workplace and career flexibility;
• gender and generation in the workforce;
• overwork in America;
• the health of the American workforce;
• improving the financial assets of low-wage workers;
• early learning and education;
• the views of youth on work and family;
• family caregivers of the elderly;
• working in retirement; and
• the aging workforce.

Ultimately, the Institute’s work benefits American employers and employees, their families, their communities, and the institutions that support them.

“The research we conduct takes the very real questions that arise from living in today’s world and turns them into studies that can inform and inspire new ways to think and act at every stage of our lives.”
- Ellen Galinsky
- President and Co-Founder Families and Work Institute

OUR IMPACT
The impact of Families and Work Institute’s work can be felt in every sector of society. We:

• conduct the ongoing National Study of the Changing Workforce (1992, 1997, 2002, 2008), the largest and most comprehensive ongoing study of the U.S. workforce, a study that is widely used by business to understand and respond to workforce trends as they emerge;
• conduct the ongoing National Study of Employers (1998, 2005, 2008), one of the most comprehensive ongoing studies of how employers are responding to the changing workforce;
• conduct seminal studies on “hot” topics, such as Generation & Gender in the Workforce, Overwork in America, Leaders in a Global Economy and Talent Management;
• coin the language that becomes widely used in describing trends, such as “work-centric,” “dual-centric,” or “family-centric” in describing the priorities of today’s employees or “intentional” teaching and parenting in summarizing the components of effective care and teaching;
• convene the annual Work Life Legacy Awards since 2004 to document the history of the work life movement, filming the stories of the extraordinary men and women who have created this movement as a living archive of the accomplishments of our past and a source of inspiration for the leaders of the future;
• spearhead work on the multi-generational workforce, economic supports for low-wage and entry-level workers, the aging workforce and changes in the workplace and medical systems that will better respond to the aging population;
  serve as a founding member of The Conference Board’s Work Life Leadership Council since 1983, a group FWI has led since its formation and that has been instrumental in creating new ways to help employers and employers make work “work;”
• host the annual Work Life Conference—the thought-leader conference in the work life field—with The Conference Board since 1985, and lead Families and Work Institute’s Corporate Leadership Circle (CLC), created in the mid 1990s—as vehicles for sharing promising practices;
• are creating a multi-media campaign on early learning for launch in early 2009 called Mind in the Making: The Science of Early Learning; convened a conference on early brain development in 1996 at the University of Chicago that changed attitudes toward early childhood and directed a national campaign on early learning, resulting in improved practices and increased state funding;
• Write numerous books, including the first book on parental development, The Six Stages of Parenthood; and
• amplify young people’s voices through the Ask the Children studies—examining their surprising views on working parents, their future employment, violence and learning—all studies that led to change.

OUR DIFFERENCE
Families and Work Institute’s work is fueled by personal passion as well as economic and societal need.

The Institute ambitiously takes on big issues: from learning to generational differences to aging in America. We go into uncharted territory, to ask the emerging questions before they crest and to seek answers.

The Institute staff members have the ability to anticipate the future and to find innovative solutions. Success at FWI involves being ahead of the curve.

We are strategic and results-driven. Perhaps because we work cross-sector, we bring these approaches to our work. We are strategic in designing projects, for example by bringing together the opponents and proponents of state parental leave laws to design a study on their impact on parents and employers to ensure that our project would be nonpartisan and scientifically rigorous. We are strategic in fostering connections among unusual partners, such as among chambers of commerce and public sector leaders on creating more effective and flexible workplaces.

We are productive. We have conducted hundreds of studies that are widely used. For example, among some 400 PDFs of our research and reports posted on our Web site, over 700 downloads are made per day on average.

We are constantly in the news. Over the past year, we were quoted or appeared in the media 394 times, averaging slightly more than once per day. In addition, 143 of these were in the top ten media markets in the country, averaging once every three days. Articles using our data appeared in the nation’s top four newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. In addition, many top magazines and Web sites quoted our research, including Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, MSNBC.com and CNN.com. In sum, we average over 575,000 media impressions per day based on the circulation rates and reach of the various media outlets in which we have appeared.

We have a commitment to excellence. We insist on driving our own agenda, on doing work we truly believe in, on doing work of the highest quality, and on achieving results.