We Know Foundation · Toronto
Young people leaving care don't need rescuing. They need a path.
We're a registered Canadian charity. We build programs for young people aging out of foster care, fund them through the years when they're unproven, and hand them to the funders who can carry them further.
How we work
Three moves, then we get out of the way.
We are not trying to become large. We look for something specific that young people leaving care need and nobody is providing, build it properly with partners who know the population, and stay with it through the stretch when it has no track record and is hardest to fund. When it can stand on its own, we hand it to people better placed to run it at scale.
That has already happened once. It's the plan for what we're building now.
Build
Design the thing itself, alongside the people who know these young people best — most often the Children's Aid Foundation of Canada.
Fund
Carry it through proof of concept: the stretch where a new program is least fundable and most likely to quietly disappear.
Hand on
Pass it to larger funders once it can stand, and put our attention on the next missing thing.
The work
One program running. One being built.
The residential program
Four to six young people, one residence, six to twelve months. The things a stable home quietly provides — and alongside them, the skills to do paid work and build real businesses using AI.
Read the program Built · funded · handed onConnections
A mental-health program linking young people leaving care to providers who will actually see them. We seeded and funded it with the Children's Aid Foundation; it now runs on other funders' support.
How it wentGetting in touch
2026 is the design year.
Almost everything that will matter about the residential program is being decided right now — who we select, how we support them, and how the human and clinical side is held while the building happens.
We're looking for two things. A small number of people who know these young people well and are willing to sit in the room while those decisions get made. And three people to run it: someone to teach the building work day to day, someone to run the residence, and clinical partners who understand this population.
If that's you, or you know who it is, write to us.
Write to usWe Know Foundation · Toronto, Canada