Dear PBIS Leader, 

The Choose Kindness Foundation (CKF) is offering $ 2,000 grants to qualified PBIS schools in support of their efforts to increase kindness. We are seeking your help in disseminating the attached email to all your PBIS schools. You may have already received information via email from Kent Macintosh, Co-Director of the OSEP National Technical Assistance Center on PBIS.  These grants can help PBIS schools integrate a kindness component into their overall behavior matrix. The Foundation offers grants to PBIS schools that have the structure in place to integrate kindness into a school’s culture successfully.   

We have maintained close contact with the originators of PBIS, George Sugai and Rob Horner, regarding CKF’s support for integrating kindness in PBIS schools.  The foundation has focused on PBIS schools with a strong structure that can support high-fidelity kindness implementations. George Sugai wrote,  

"Congrats on new grant-dollar opportunities for schools, data evaluation plan, and nice practitioner-oriented materials. In our PBIS work, Rob always reminded me/us to stay true to our theoretical foundations, arrange environment for success, measure to demonstrate kid level impact, and stick with empirically level practices. The Choose Kindness Foundation has modeled those same guiding principles.” 

There is a large body of evidence that suggests that increasing kindness is one very important way in which mental health challenges can be addressed. Research shows that practicing kindness:  

• Plays a critical role in the development of positive social relationships.  

• Boosts peer acceptance and well-being, fostering inclusiveness.  

• Improves academic performance.  

• Increases levels of happiness by reducing feelings of social isolation. 

• Protects from life’s discontents.   

A simple way to create a culture of kindness and caring is to consistently teach kind behaviors (showing appreciation, offering to help, being friendly, and reaching out to those in need) across a variety of settings while engaging all students. As noted by the American Psychological Assoc., Prosocial behavior toward friends, strangers, and oneself—and even observing or recalling kind acts—have all been shown to increase well-being (APA, 2023).   

Douglas Carnine, Ph.D. 
Founder and President 
Choose Kindness Foundation