Citizens' Committee For Children

Citizens' Committee For Children

Citizens' Committee for Children of New York (CCC) is a non-governmental organization based in New York City and founded in 1944 that provides "a voice for children, especially poor and vulnerable children and children with special needs" as the city's "only locally-based, multi-issue child advocacy organization" working towards its aim of making the city a better place for children.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Adele Rosenwald Levy and Marion Ascoli (daughters of Julius Rosenwald), Judge Justine W. Polier, Alfred J. Kahn, Dr. Kenneth Clark, and Benjamin Spock were among CCC's founders and early leaders. Though Charlotte Carr, of Chicago's Hull House, was CCC's first Executive Director, Trude Lash, longtime friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, was its first Program Director in 1946 and served as Executive Director for 20 years from 1952 until 1972.

In May 1954, the organization elected Dean Kenneth W. Johnson of the Columbia University School of Social Work to serve as its chairman, succeeding Leonard W. Mayo, who became a director of the committee.

A November 2008 article in The New York Times documented the effects of the economic downturn on charitable organizations. Executive director Jennifer March-Joly described how the organization was working to deal with the demise of Lehman Brothers, which had covered most of the cost of promoting Works on Paper, a fund-raising art auction the held each February.