Since 1946, AIR has conducted rigorous research and applied evidence-based practices to address complex social issues and improve the lives of individuals, from birth to the end of life, both domestically and across the globe. In addition to serving our mission through client-driven work, AIR invests its own talent and resources to tackle seemingly intractable, long-standing problems that prevent all citizens from having access to good health care, education, and pathways to employment.

Since 1946, AIR has conducted rigorous research and used evidence to address complex social issues and improve the lives of individuals, from birth to the end of life, both domestically and across the globe. Given this important challenge, AIR is using its own funds to launch an agenda and a partnership program around equity. The AIR Equity Initiative supports mission-driven approaches that public agencies, foundations, or other donors are unlikely to fund. AIR's Equity Initiative will tackle long-standing problems that prevent people from having access to quality employment, education, and health care.

AIR understands that diversity and inclusion are fundamental to reducing inequity. Building upon the organization’s commitment to this work, the AIR Equity Initiative invests in institutional and individual capacity to build diverse and inclusive ways to generate and use evidence about equity.

AIR has a long tradition of generating evidence to understand and address social and economic inequities. Yet critical gaps remain in the evidence base. The AIR Equity Initiative will continue to identify and invest in research that centers on equity and holds promise for informing ways to improve opportunities and outcomes, and in ideas or approaches that receive little attention or funding from others.

The AIR Equity Initiative will build the connective tissue between evidence and its use and help promote better outcomes. Investments will facilitate seamless transitions between the scholastic and the practical, and aid the development of structures, tools, and processes that support the use of evidence in policy and program implementation. This work will also begin and end with a focus on equity and how evidence might be used to better meet the needs of all citizens.

Meet AIR's Equity Initiative Team.