Child poverty is no joke. One in five children in the U.S. live in poverty. Picture a classroom — in every five seats, there’s one with a child who doesn’t have enough to eat, or a safe and nurturing place to live. And it’s only getting worse, as the social safety net gets smaller and people, inundated with bad news, don’t know where to focus or how they can help.

We’ve been strategizing how we can make a bigger sea change in our fight to end childhood poverty. The result is a new impact model that uses the power of comedy to shine a light on the issue, mobilize people to take action, and pump resources into the poverty-fighting solutions that work so they can go farther, faster.

Because we cannot let another child go to bed at night hungry. Or not see a doctor when they get sick. Or start school with developmental delays, creating a gap that widens over time and seriously limits their opportunities. We can change this. We know how to change this. And together, we will change this. 

This Moment Is Different

There’s never been a more crucial time for us to join together. The world is uncertain. The cost of living is squeezing families. Trust in institutions is at an all-time low. People are donating less, getting out and volunteering less, and in many ways we’ve lost hope in the possibility we can change things. 

At the same time, childhood poverty has taken a backseat in the public conversation. Not because people don't care, but because they don’t know how to help. They don’t believe their efforts will change things. This is especially true for younger generations.

The result: the resources families need to break the systemic, intergenerational issues that keep them in poverty remain under-recognized and under-resourced.

If we meet people where they are — in culture, in conversation, in the places where they're already paying attention — and make them see how they can make a difference . We can inspire them to help. 

Comic Relief Was Built For This

We've always known that comedy is more than entertainment. Laughter does something in the brain that almost nothing else can: it lowers defenses. It creates openness. The best comedy reaches right into the heart and turns an otherwise abstract issue into something personal and worth caring about.

And no other organization is positioned to use it the way Comic Relief does: to shift the story around childhood poverty from invisible to visible, from inevitable to solvable, from someone else's problem to ours. The old story — that poverty is too complicated, too big to fix — is wrong. We know what causes poverty is a lack of access to reliable and secure housing, wages, healthcare, and education. We know who poverty affects most and where it shows up.  

Comedy is a powerful tool, and you’ll see us use it on our socials, in our campaigns, at our shows, and more, to reveal the true roots of poverty in the U.S. and show the impact our efforts — your efforts — are making on real people. 

This is part one of a three part series on our impact strategy.

• Part 1: We're evolving, because kids can't wait.
• Part 2: Childhood poverty is a we problem. And together we can solve it.
• Part 3: When communities lead, kids thrive. Here’s how we’re using comedy to make that happen.