National Fatherhood Initiative turned 20 years old in 2014. We understand that measuring effectiveness is key to making a difference in the lives of children and families. We use a variety of methods to measure our impact. We want to be good stewards of the resources we’ve been given to do this important work, and we want to make sure we are using the best approaches to accomplish our mission. Please review our 2014 Progress Report to learn how we are connecting fathers to their children.

NFI is a Second-Question Organization in a First-Question World

NFI’s mission is to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children with involved, responsible, and committed fathers. Sounds like an easy job, right? After all, doesn’t everyone want fathers to be great role models?

However, NFI is a second-question organization in a first-question world. Most people who want to help children ask the “first question”: What can I do to help that child in need? That’s an important question. But, if you really want to make a positive, long-term difference in the life of a child, you need to ask the “second question”: How did the child get there in the first place? Why does he need my help?

More often than not, you will find that the child does not have the love, nurture, and guidance of an involved, responsible, and committed father. Children from father-absent homes are two to five times more likely to use drugs, live in poverty, fail in school, and suffer from a host of other risks.

No other single factor hurts children more than father absence. Therefore, NFI is committed to addressing the second question by connecting fathers to their children heart to heart.

In our first question world most people are focused on intervention, which is good and noble and must happen. But NFI is also committed to prevention. We seek to create a world in which fewer and fewer children need our help because they have great dads who have been given the skills and encouragement they need, via NFI’s efforts, to be the kinds of dads their children need them to be.

NFI Accomplishes This By

NFI's Community-Based Fatherhood Initiatives

Learn more about What Happens When 120+ Fathers Become Trained Dads in San Diego

NFI's Solutions for Incarcerated Fathers

Read about 381 Dads and Counting: How Kentucky Department of Corrections is Changing Fathers from the Inside Out

NFI's Solutions for Fathers in the Military

Find details on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State and how NFI is helping support deployed dads. 

NFI's State and Local Government Agency Fatherhood Initiatives

Learn how NFI is helping New Jersey Focus on Fatherhood.

Resources Distributed and Practitioners Trained

NFI is the #1 provider of fatherhood resources and the #1 trainer of fatherhood program practitioners in the country. One way to measure our impact is to ensure that we are continuing to distribute hundreds of thousands of resources and training hundreds of new practitioners each year. To date, we have distributed over 6,627,468 fatherhood resources and we have trained over 13,700 individuals from over 6,300 organizations on how to deliver our programs to dads.

Testimonials

Finally, NFI collects stories from around the country from the dads and organizations who have been impacted by our work. This may not be the “hardest” measure of success, but it is certainly the most satisfying to read. Here are some examples that help us know our work is making a difference.