Genentech is excited to launch a new philanthropic initiative, The Resilience Effect, to address childhood adversity and its long-term effects on health. For more than 40 years, our company has pursued groundbreaking science to improve the lives of people facing serious and life-threatening diseases.  That’s why, when we learned about the emerging science behind the effects of toxic stress and the connection between early adverse childhood experiences and diseases later in life, we knew we had to focus our new giving initiative on this field.

Our goal is to support leading thinkers across clinical and community settings to design, test and scale the most effective ways to address childhood trauma. Since childhood adversity is a complex problem that no one organization can tackle alone, we are supporting local partners and creating collaborations to drive progress.  We’ve learned that intervening early presents the best opportunity to prevent and heal the effects of childhood adversity, which is why the initial focus of our initiative is on low-income children under age five in our local Bay Area communities.

We’re also excited to harness the passion of our employees to help push the project forward, bringing together a diverse range of skills from science and analytics to and communications.  We don’t expect the work to be easy. But as we do in research, we tackle tough challenges and learn as we go along.

It’s exciting to support the growing movement that is working to help children in our own community who suffer serious traumas. The Bay Area is home to so many innovators on this issue that we’re optimistic that the region can become a leader in efforts to address childhood adversity, and a model for the rest of the country. Learn more about our work, and sign up to receive program updates, here.