About Wilson Institute
The William Julius Wilson Institute (WJW Institute), named for one of our nation’s most prolific African American scholars on poverty and inequality and led by Geoffrey Canada—HCZ founder and president—is a national resource for place-based, people-focused solutions that open pathways to social and economic mobility.
Our Vision
Housed at HCZ, the Wilson Institute works together with on-the-ground-collaborators and national partners to deliver comprehensive strategies, support services, and tools that systematically root out poverty and close opportunity gaps in neighborhoods across America. The WJW Institute acts as a central hub for place-based services and programs and for backbone organizations to access the supports they need to be successful.
Our Service Offerings
The WJW Institute provides three types of catalytic supports.
Foundational Supports
Best-in-class expertise to strengthen strategies, systems, and skills of community collaborators so teams can lead, achieve, and sustain measurable results.
Foundational Supports
Programmatic Supports
From education to employment and health access to housing, we collaborate with communities to close opportunity gaps in neighborhoods for direct impact.
Programmatic Supports
Field Building
Whether it’s shaping bold strategies, connecting partners, or scaling outcomes, we move the field forward with insight, influence, and impact.
Field Building
Case Study: COVID-19 Response and Recovery
During the height of COVID-19, HCZ successfully designed and implemented a five-phase emergency response and recovery plan in Harlem. The WJW Institute team is currently scaling the program with partners in six cities where Black people are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 by:
- Outlining potential actions against each focus area
- Providing training and technical assistance
- Sharing public health campaign materials
- Virtually convening community leaders to problem solve and share proven practices
- Assisting in securing resources
5 Needs That Any COVID-19 Response Should Meet
In a TED Talk, HCZ CEO Kwame Owusu-Kesse explains HCZ’s comprehensive COVID-19 relief and recovery response focused on five primary areas of need.
Harlem Children’s Zone Responds: This Is About Saving Lives
In March 2020, HCZ staff came together to assemble free groceries for community members facing job loss, hunger, and grief due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Partners across the country are helping to scale COVID-19 response efforts in six cities.
About William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson
William Julius Wilson
Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University
William Julius Wilson is a sociologist and Harvard University professor who has authored seminal works on urban sociology, race, and class. His work has identified the importance of neighborhood effects and demonstrated how limited employment opportunities and weakened institutional resources exacerbate poverty in American cities.
His books include Power, Racism and Privilege (1973), The Declining Significance of Race (1978), The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), When Work Disappears (1996), The Bridge over the Racial Divide (1999), There Goes the Neighborhood (2006, co-author), Good Kids from Bad Neighborhoods (2006, co-author), and, most recently, More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (2009).
Contact
Interested in learning more about the William Julius Wilson Institute? We’d love to connect with you.
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