RESULTS AND OUR IMPACT
Leaders in the fight to end poverty
RESULTS is a leading force for ending poverty in the United States and worldwide with a unique model for empowering ordinary people to influence U.S. government priorities. Since 1980, RESULTS and our nationwide network of volunteer advocates have secured billions of dollars in funding for effective anti-poverty programs that improve access to health, education, and economic opportunity in the U.S. and worldwide. We’ve played a role in passing groundbreaking legislation that help people in the most impoverished places access lifesaving vaccines and other medical treatments and kids go to school. We’ve also successfully mobilized for anti-poverty programs that help millions in the U.S. access health care, housing, and nutrition.
The result: millions of people around the world have the tools to take better care of themselves, their families, and their communities. And people and communities across the U.S. have realized their power to effect change.
Mercy Zakaliya with her 9-month-old baby, Precious, at the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation in Lilongwe, Malawi. Mercy was born HIV-positive and has been on treatment since she was 3 years old. Precious is on preventive medications to ensure he remains HIV-free. The Baylor Foundation receives support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which RESULTS has successfully advocated for since it launched in 2002. Source: The Global Fund/Tommy Trenchard
RESULTS since 1980
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POWERFUL VOICES,
POWERFUL RESULTS
We work across the political spectrum to inspire support for programs and policies that reduce poverty and save lives. This deep advocacy has helped to achieve quantum leaps. For example:
- In 1980, more than 40,000 children under the age of 5 died every day, primarily from infectious diseases and malnutrition. We’ve worked diligently to prevent these deaths, asking Congress and institutions like the World Bank to fund maternal and child health, nutrition, and immunization programs. The number of child deaths has been cut by two-thirds. We’ll continue our work until the number is zero.
- In 1997, our Microcredit Summit Campaign set one of the boldest goals on the planet — to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families with microcredit loans for small businesses as a path out of poverty. That target, which was met in 2006, proved the power of boldness. We never forget it.
- In 2021, we proved it was possible, with government policy, to cut child poverty in the U.S. in half. RESULTS played a role in the one-year expansion of the Child Tax Credit to the lowest-income families, lifting nearly 3 million children out of poverty. Poverty is a policy choice, which is why our advocacy with Congress remains critical.
45 years of RESULTS
RESULTS is born
RESULTS founder Sam Daley-Harris gathered 12 people in a living room in Los Angeles to write letters to Congress urging action on global hunger
RESULTS’ first newspaper editorial runs in the Los Angeles Times.
RESULTS advocacy was central to securing $60 million in U.S. funding for oral rehydration therapy to treat deadly diarrhea
5 million children died from dehydration caused by diarrhea in 1984, more than any other single cause of childhood death. That number has dropped to less than 450,000.
RESULTS grows to 50 chapters in 33 states.
Congress provided $8 million for vitamin A supplements to protect children from deficiencies that can lead to blindness and death.
RESULTS advocates generated 42 editorials in newspapers nationwide as part of a successful pressure campaign to save a UN agency that helps poor farmers increase their food.
First RESULTS conference held in Washington, DC.
Congress added $25 million to the Child Survival Fund to help immunize 10 million children after RESULTS volunteers generated 90 editorials.
Self-Sufficiency for the Poor Act became law
RESULTS introduced microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus to Congress. Our advocacy helped pass this $50 million initiative to provide small loans to people living in extreme poverty, especially women
1 million+ people attended vigils in over 500 locations in the U.S. and 74 other countries
RESULTS organized candlelight vigils worldwide calling on world leaders at the UN World Summit for Children to reduce childhood deaths caused by preventable disease and malnutrition.
RESULTS affiliates formed in Australia, Canada, and the UK.
RESULTS sparked a congressional investigative report on poverty lending that spurred Congress to set aside $50 million over two years for loans for small businesses to the world’s most impoverished people.
The World Bank increased the share of its lending targeted to health and education to benefit the very poor after RESULTS gathered support from nearly 1,400 members of Congress and parliamentarians.
RESULTS new U.S. poverty program added 15 groups in its first year.
RESULTS supported Congress to create a special budgetary account for global child survival and health with $300 million in initial funding. Within a year, funding increased to $600 million and added basic education.
RESULTS convened the first Microcredit Summit with delegates from 137 countries, launching a campaign to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families with small loans and other financial services. [Links to box with photo] For 20 years, RESULTS hosted the Microcredit Summit Campaign, which helped drive the massive scale-up of access to microfinance for people in poverty, while identifying innovative pathways to transformative financial and social inclusion.
RESULTS began advocating for tuberculosis (TB) funding to address this major cause and consequence of poverty worldwide. At the time, the U.S. was contributing less than $1 million annually to fight TB worldwide.
In a win for our growing U.S. poverty program, Congress passed a $933 million funding increase for Head Start, a preschool program designed to help break the cycle of poverty. This brought the total number of children enrolled to almost 1 million.
In another win, funding for the Food Stamps program (now SNAP) was increased by $1.6 billion.
RESULTS efforts were pivotal in doubling the amount of the Child Tax Credit and making it available to low-income families, lifting 500,000 children in the U.S. out of poverty.
RESULTS’ campaign to provide quality health care for all Americans helped defeat proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
RESULTS’ campaign to provide quality health care for all Americans helped defeat proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
RESULTS and our global partners launched ACTION, a partnership of advocacy organizations across 5 continents fighting diseases of poverty. ACTION has made a profound impact on global health over the last two decades. Together, we and our Partners have helped to mobilize pledges from our respective countries totaling more than $130 billion. The crucial support has been used to scale up equitable responses to TB, HIV, malaria, polio, malnutrition, COVID-19, and more.
Congress committed $550 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, nearly doubling the amount requested in the president’s budget.
Assistance for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act passed to respond to the 16 million children orphaned by AIDS.
Congress committed $550 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, nearly doubling the amount requested in the president’s budget.
The World Bank reversed its policy of encouraging countries to charge school fees, which kept hundreds of millions of children out of school, after RESULTS worked with Congress to apply pressure.
Lantos-Hyde Act signed into law, authorizing $48 billion over 5 years for AIDS, TB, and malaria programs, including RESULTS’ request of $4 billion for TB and a goal of treating 4.5 million people.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program was expanded to cover 4.1 million additional American kids.
Thanks in part to RESULTS’ advocacy, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included: – $20 billion in nutrition assistance, benefiting 31 million people – Improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit that benefited 7 million people and kept 3 million out of poverty – An expansion of the Child Tax Credit to nearly 3 million low-income families
1 million more children went to school over the next 5 years thanks to a 40% increase in the World Bank’s basic education lending.
Our Microcredit Summit Campaign achieved its goal of reaching 100 million of the world’s poorest families with microfinance loans and other key services. Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus cited RESULTS as having “built up tremendous momentum” for the microfinance movement.
RESULTS helped expand Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover 4.1 million additional American kids.
U.S. pledged $450 million over 3 years to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
RESULTS advocates were instrumental in securing the U.S. pledge, which supported Gavi’s plan to immunize more than 250 million of the world’s poorest children and prevent 4 million premature deaths over 3 years.
RESULTS helped to prevent cuts to SNAP that could have left 11 million people without a reliable source of food.
RESULTS Experts on Poverty program launched to support people with lived experience of poverty in advocating for more effective anti-poverty policies and programs. From being featured in The Washington Post to speaking at press conferences on Capitol Hill, RESULTS’ Experts on Poverty have raised their voices and influenced policy discussions at the highest levels.
RESULTS helped organize Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai’s very first visit to Capitol Hill.
Crucial provisions of the Earned Income Tax Credit were made permanent, reducing poverty for some 16 million people — one of the biggest U.S. anti-poverty legislative victories in two decades.
READ Act signed into law, ensuring that U.S. investments in global basic education have the greatest possible impact for the 263 million children around the world out of school.
Years of efforts culminated in the first-ever high-level United Nations meeting on TB, where world leaders committed to reaching 40 million people with TB treatment by 2022.
Thanks to constituent pressure, Congress passed a bipartisan farm bill that protected SNAP from severe cuts, ensuring more than 9 billion meals for people struggling to put food on the table in the U.S.
Congress appropriated $4 billion for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to support access to COVID-19 vaccines in lower-income countries, averting 2.7 million deaths.
Steepest 1-year decline in child poverty in U.S. history
A temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit to the lowest income families — which RESULTS has pressed for — lifted 5.3 million people out of poverty, including 2.9 million children. Food insecurity also dropped to its lowest level in 2 decades, thanks to a 15% increase in SNAP benefits combined with the expanded Child Tax Credit and other measures.
The Global Malnutrition Prevention and Treatment Act became law to ensure the U.S. funds the highest-impact nutrition interventions and tracks progress.
RESULTS played a key role in a U.S. pledge of $6 billion to the Global Fund, a whopping 30% increase over the previous pledge and offered it as a 1:2 match toward commitments from other donors. Since 2002, health programs supported by the Global Fund partnership have saved 70 million lives by expanding treatment and prevention for HIV, TB, and malaria and strengthening health systems in more than 100 of the hardest hit countries.
The U.S. made a historic pledge of $1.58 billion over five years pledge to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Since Gavi was established in 2000, it has helped vaccinate more than 1.2 billion children in 78 countries. Gavi-supported immunizations have generated a massive $280 billion in economic returns, clear evidence that vaccines support stability and growth for families and countries.
The fiscal year 2024 budget cut foreign aid spending overall by 6%, but our advocacy protected funding for key global health, nutrition, and education programs.
Lifesaving global health programs protected
After the administration cut almost all foreign aid, our strategic advocacy with Congress had lifesaving results: Dozens of terminated global health programs were restarted across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Senate refused to support cuts to AIDS, TB, malaria, or maternal and child health in the White House “rescissions” request. A key House committee fully restored or even increased funding in the next fiscal budget for all of the global health accounts we advocate for, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Mitigating the damage to the U.S. safety net
RESULTS mounted an exceptional advocacy campaign to fight the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act — which slashed food assistance and health coverage for as many as 20 million people — and helped to mitigate some of the damage. Meaningful improvements included: Reducing the maximum amount that states will have to contribute to SNAP from 25% to 15%. Starting SNAP work requirements for parents when their dependents reach age 14 instead of age 7, removing the onerous requirements for nearly 5.7 million people. Modifying a Social Security requirement so that nearly 2 million U.S. citizen kids with non-citizen parents remain eligible for the Child Tax Credit.
Impact Reports
2025
2024
2023
2022
“I feel viscerally the power we have with RESULTS. If other people knew the power they have, they would never be silent.”
Carolyn Prouty
RESULTS volunteer advocate and donor
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