How Funding Has Shifted to Support the Growing Child Care Movement

Policy advocates, organizers, parents, caregivers and others in the early childhood community are urging Congress to make critical investments in care infrastructure as part of a federal budget reconciliation package. This coalition of allied partners are pushing to move transformative policies forward, with investments to make child care more accessible, affordable and equitable for all.

Today’s U.S. child care system suffers from chronic underfunding and lacks the resources to support a cohesive, high-functioning system that works for all. Activists and organizers have worked for decades to build a more equitable system, and with notable shifts in the early childhood funding landscape prior to and accelerated by the pandemic, many funders are striving to support these advocates in building a more unified, cross-sector approach to supporting child care. Examining these shifts provides a fuller picture of the current state of funding in child care, and where advocates in the space hope it will go in the future.

Like other funders, Imaginable Futures has witnessed this evolution over the last few years and, informed by our partners and our work, shifted our U.S. strategy to better meet the needs of this moment. Here are three ways shifting investment practices have impacted the funding landscape for child care overall.

A systems-level approach

Affordable and equitable child care is critical for early childhood development and family economic stability, and yet quality child care options are inaccessible to many. Recognizing that quality child care facilitates child development, supports working families and contributes to economic development and well-being at the community and national levels, many philanthropies and other funders are taking a systems-level approach to child care. A key component of ensuring that learning and care is accessible to all is addressing underlying patterns of inequity that create barriers to learning through more holistic, comprehensive supports for families. This includes addressing a history of racism and sexism built into the design of our current child care system.

At Imaginable Futures, our work in the U.S. is based on a two-generation approach, with a focus on investing in equity-centered advocacy, innovation and research to support equitable learning experiences in early childhood and the postsecondary success of student parents. A key component of our approach is understanding the system as it exists today and putting families and educators at the center — respecting their choices and striving to improve the quality, accessibility and affordability of the options for them to choose from. This includes emphasizing home-based child care as a key component of a comprehensive child care system.

We support organizations like All Our Kin and Wonderschool and partnered with other funders to create Home Grown, which all work to support and strengthen home-based child care practices and advocate for equitable, sustainable wages for providers. Home Grown’s work in particular is a testament to the increased shift toward funding child care initiatives through a systems-level approach, which has resulted in a more unified response among philanthropies and funders, with 16 funders partnering on this initiative.

Funding for organizers

Taking a systems-level approach that centers families and communities requires moving funding into the work actually being done at the local level. To meet this incredible moment of opportunity, child care needs a coordinated and robust movement that builds consensus on a national vision and is grounded in the voices of families and providers. We must give organizers who have been doing this work for decades the resources they need to drive this change.

New pooled funding initiatives are forming to engage in this work, like the Raising Child Care Fund (RCCF), which supports grassroots organizers in their efforts to advocate for and design a more equitable child care system at the local, state and federal levels. Established in 2018 by five pioneering foundations — Heising-Simons Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, Irving Harris Foundation, Pritzker Children’s Initiative and Vanguard Strong Start for Kids — RCCF has more than doubled the number of contributing funders in only three years.

Funders, as key actors in shaping the future of funding for child care, have the opportunity to create more transformative and sustainable impact by intentionally focusing on elevating grassroots organizers’ work and filling the gaps in the child care system as identified by advocates and community-level experts closest to the issues.

A transformative vision for child care

Many funders have increased their focus on a more transformative and expansive vision for child care. This vision requires significant policy change and public funding, which can only be realized with alignment across the system and deep collaboration with families and educators. Key initiatives like the Child Care for Every Family Network have emerged from this alignment, bringing local, state and federal organizers and advocates together under a justice-centered movement coalition aimed at building a more equitable child care system that includes universal access to high-quality, affordable and culturally relevant child care and a diverse, well-supported and equitably compensated workforce. It has also given rise to Child Care NEXT, which funds state advocacy coalitions working to make transformative change in their state’s child care policies and funding.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine child care, and to make critical investments in care infrastructure and early learning that will transform the system for good. This has unmatched potential to support children, adults and overall family well-being, deliver comprehensive early childhood supports, and move away from a system built on the low wages and poor working conditions of primarily women, and disproportionately women of color, to one with a stable and thriving workforce.

The pandemic has precipitated a broader societal awareness of how broken and chronically underfunded the child care system is and has created a new opportunity for change. While we remain hopeful that Congress will make these critical investments, philanthropies and funders must nonetheless continue to shift their investment practices to ensure that the system continues to evolve into a more unified one that provides accessible, high-quality and comprehensive child care options for all.

Ashley Beckner is a Venture Partner at Imaginable Futures, a global philanthropic investment firm launched in early 2020 as a spin-out of the education initiative at Omidyar Network. Ashley co-leads Imaginable Futures’ efforts in the U.S. with a focus on enhancing early experiences and brain development as the foundation for lifelong thriving.

Featured