Sesame Workshop (SW, or "the Workshop"), formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American non-profit organization behind the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-known, Sesame Street—that have run on public broadcasting around the world. Television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and foundation executive Lloyd Morrisett came up with the idea to form an organization to oversee the production of Sesame Street, a television show which would help children, especially those from low-income families, prepare for school. They spent two years, from 1966 to 1968, researching, developing, and raising money for the new show. Cooney was named as the Workshop's first executive director, which was called "one of the most important televis