History

Founded in 1901, during the Progressive Era, MASW started in St. Louis as the Missouri Conference on Corrections and Charities. It was mostly a statewide professional forum for philanthropists, government employees of human services agencies, and private charity professionals. For the first decade its activities consisted mostly of meeting once a year to discuss social problems and read papers.

Under the leadership of Roger Baldwin, subsequent founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, MASW became a more activist organization. We began advocating for changes in public policy to improve social conditions. Among our first major successes was the creation of the Widow's Pension Program, a pilot project in Jackson County, Missouri, which spread around the country and became the model for the national Aid to Dependent Children Program passed in the Social Security Act of 1935. Other achievements in our first century include creation of the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, the Missouri Public Defender Commission, the School Nutrition Program, the Missouri Housing Trust Fund, Family Development Accounts, and the Missouri Foundation for Health, as well as major reforms in the Department of Corrections, expansion of Medicaid, and repeal of the state sales tax on food.

Thus far in our second century MASW has helped enact Mental Health Parity legislation, an increase in the State Minimum Wage, Dept. of Corrections reforms (including visitation policies and a waiver of first 90 days of Intervention Fee), creation of the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City and of the Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance, and has successfully introduced “economic justice” into the legislative debate on regulation of electric utility rates.

Today, the Missouri Association for Social Welfare (MASW) is a 109-year-old statewide non-profit organization based in Jefferson City, Missouri. We have nearly 1,000 members, including organizations and individual, in all parts of the state, with strong local chapters in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and Central Missouri. Four full-time employees are based at our headquarters, the Center for Social Justice in Jefferson City, two of whom primarily work on the Homeless Missourians Information System (HMIS). Two part-time employees, one each based in St. Louis and Kansas City, work with our other full-time staff in Jefferson City to support the work of our chapters and task forces. We have an annual operating budget of $400,000, assets that include a sizeable endowment established during MASW’s centennial celebration and our building at 606 East Capitol Avenue in Jefferson City, which in addition to serving as our headquarters also includes space we lease to other non-profit organizations.

For other MASW accomplishments, view our 100 Years Brochure, created for our Centennial Celebration in 2001.

Updated: 08/24/2009