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RAPID and Child Poverty Action Lab partnership

Community served

Child Poverty Action Lab is based in Dallas, Texas, where one in four children grow up in poverty. Child Poverty Action Lab aims to cut the poverty rate in half by rethinking how data can be integrated into public systems, community programs, and neighborhood life to break cycles of intergenerational poverty. 

Priorities and goals

The organization actively engages directly with Dallas families, community organizations, and local government, to move beyond zero-sum thinking and toward shared problem solving. Child Poverty Action Lab identifies key areas to reduce child poverty in Dallas, rooted in a growing body of evidence that connects experiences in childhood to economics in adulthood:

  • Benefits delivery
  • Maternal health
  • Housing
  • Criminal justice
  • Safety
  • Strong neighborhoods
  • Early development
  • Economic connectedness

Engaging families

In 2022, the RAPID Survey Project and Child Poverty Action Lab began collecting data about the experiences of Dallas families with young children. The partnership is one of 100+ relationships that Child Poverty Action Lab has built within a growing network of local and national partner organizations. In addition, they cultivate on-the-ground insights by actively participating in more than 1,500 conversations with Dallas residents and frontline workers every year.

Data and insights

Data is central to everything Child Poverty Action Lab does, and they work to bridge information gaps by delivering actionable data to families, partner organizations, and local government agencies that lead to better decisions on behalf of families and communities.