What Does "MDRC" Stand For?
In 1974, MDRC was founded as the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. However, in 2003, we made "MDRC" the registered corporate identity of our organization, thereby formally adopting the name by which we had become best known to our professional colleagues and the general public.
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What Is MDRC? |
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Too often, public policies that profoundly affect the lives
of low-income families are shaped by hunches, anecdotes, and untested assumptions.
Ineffective policies waste
precious resources and feed public cynicism about government.
Most important, such
policies may hinder the very people they are designed
to help.
MDRC was created to learn what works in social policy
— and to make sure that the
evidence we produce informs the design and implementation
of policies and programs.
Created in 1974 by the Ford Foundation and a group of
federal agencies, MDRC is best
known for mounting large-scale evaluations of real-world
policies and programs targeted
to low-income people. We helped pioneer the use of random
assignment — the same
highly reliable methodology that is used to test new medicines
— in the evaluation of
such policies and programs. In some cases, we work with
others to design pathbreaking
initiatives and then subject those initiatives to rigorous
testing. In other cases, we conduct
careful evaluations of programs designed and operated
by government agencies or
others.
Over the years, MDRC has brought its unique approach to
an ever-growing range of policy
areas and target populations. Once known primarily for
evaluations of state welfare-to-work
programs, today MDRC is also studying public school reforms,
employment programs
for ex-prisoners and people with disabilities, and programs
to help low-income
people succeed in college. We have worked in nearly every
state and most major cities; we
also helped create a sister organization in Canada and
are currently managing a large
project in the United Kingdom with British partners. The
five main policy areas in which we work, illustrate
the breadth
and diversity of our current projects. Those areas include:
- Promoting Family Well-Being and Child Development
- Improving Public Education
- Promoting Successful Transitions to Adulthood
- Supporting Low-Wage Workers and Communities
- Overcoming Barriers to Employment
Working in fields where emotion and ideology
often dominate public debates, MDRC is seen
as a source of objective, unbiased evidence.
From welfare policy to high school reform,
MDRC’s research has frequently helped to
shape legislation, program design, and operational
practices across the country. |
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Our Mission
MDRC is dedicated to learning what works to improve the well-being of low-income people.
Through our research and the active communication of our findings, we seek to enhance the effectiveness of
social policies and programs.
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  Corporate Report
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"Sometimes we are privileged to be
part of something that succeeds beyond our wildest dreams.
MDRC, a widely respected and effective social policy
research organization, is one of these special success
stories."
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Susan Berresford
President,
Ford Foundation,
1996-2007
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