This Pooled Fund Is Driving Progress for Early Care — and Confronting a Possible Setback in D.C.

The last decade has seen an upsurge in awareness of the importance of early care — for children, families and the future — that has not yet translated to substantial change on the ground. Our early care system, which is not a system at all but a mishmash of public and private care facilities, large and small, is failing children, families and caregivers.

More than half of American children live in child care deserts, according to the Center for American Progress. Meanwhile, the Bank of America Institute calculates that the average family's child care costs were 32% higher in January 2024 than in 2019, a reality that is threatening women’s opportunities. “As the expense has increased over the last several decades, the percentage of women in the workforce has stalled,” according to the report. It’s a crisis that affects parents and non-parents alike: A report by the Council for Strong America found that “the nation’s infant-toddler child care crisis now costs $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue every year.”

But there are some bright spots out there. In a number of states around the country, early childhood advocates are making inroads — and making their voices heard. One of those bright spots is the Raising Child Care Fund (RCCF), a pooled funding initiative launched in 2019 by the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.

In its first five years, the fund raised over $17 million from 14 philanthropic supporters to back community-based organizations in 16 states and Washington, D.C. RCCF provides multiyear, unrestricted funds to the groups it supports.

The pooled fund’s backers include many of the philanthrosphere’s early childhood champions, like the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bezos Family Foundation, Buffett Early Childhood Fund, Early Educator Investment Collaborative, Heising-Simons Foundation, Imaginable Futures, Irving Harris Foundation, and the Richard Goldman Family Foundation, as well as other prominent funders, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Pivotal Ventures and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

Strategies and tactics deployed by the groups RCCF funds vary depending on region, but there are similarities, too. “The common denominator is that all of the groups we work with are very much rooted in communities — especially communities of color — and they are working with those who are most impacted by this crazy non-system,” said RCCF Director Rachel Schumacher. “Their voices are informing where we need to go as a country to make child care better and more equitable for families and providers and the folks who work in the field. We have an incredible opportunity as a funder intermediary to provide the resources and get out of the way so these folks can do their work and make positive social change.”

But along with these scattered gains, early care is facing a potential setback. In Washington, D.C., the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, an initiative considered a model and an inspiration by advocates around the country, is on the chopping block. The fund’s fate, which will be determined in the coming months, will have ramifications for the field well outside the capital. But even if it’s slashed from D.C.’s budget, RCCF holds that ongoing organizing by grantees signals what’s to be gained by backing power-building for early care.

What’s going on in D.C.?

When it passed in 2022 in an unanimous vote by the D.C. Council, the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund was widely celebrated as a breakthrough for early educators. As one council member put it, “I think no other jurisdiction in the country is doing what we are doing — paying our early educators good, livable wages.”

The goal was to bring notoriously low compensation for early educators closer to that of public school teachers. The Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund was created in part by a tax increase for the district’s wealthiest residents. To date, it has paid over $80 million in stipends to 4,000 educators, according to the Washington Post. The measure also gives educators access to health insurance. Many early educators went back to school to gain credentials so they would qualify for the stipends; others paid off bills or made other investments. “You could just see the boost in morale, the excitement and joy when it began,” one educator told the Post. “Teachers were finally able to look into becoming homeowners for the first time or finally trading in their old cars for reliable transportation.”

Now those gains could be scrapped, if, as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed, the Pay Equity Fund is eliminated in the 2025 budget. The city faces a $29 billion shortfall through 2029, and D.C. is scrambling to find ways to fill the gap.

Spaces in Action, a Raising Child Care Fund grantee based in D.C., worked hard for the establishment of the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund and is now fighting hard to save it. “We're saying that this is unacceptable,” Spaces in Action’s Executive Director LaDon Love said. “How can you make this promise to people and then pull it back? The D.C. government is divesting from the primarily Black and brown women who take care of D.C.’s babies and toddlers.”

Love and her colleagues at Spaces in Action have launched a fierce outreach campaign. They are spreading the word at early care centers, amplifying the voices of early educators and parents through videotaped interviews, and organizing a letter writing campaign to elected officials. On national Day Without Childcare, which is coming up on May 13th, advocates, educators, parents and children will pay visits to D.C. Council offices and hold a rally outside the building. There have already been protests and D.C. Council members have told Love that they’ve never received as many calls for any measure as they have in support of the Pay Equity Fund.

Meanwhile, the Bainum Family Foundation, which is based just outside D.C. and has made early childhood education a priority in its funding, slammed the proposed cuts to the fund, pointing out that they would harm children, educators and families. “We know that the wellbeing and expertise of early childhood educators who care for our youngest children have an impact on the quality of services children receive,” said Marica Cox Mitchell, Bainum’s vice president of early childhood, in a statement. “Compensation is tied to quality.”

Cox Mitchell underscored the national implications of a potential pullback in the nation’s capital. “Since 2022, the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund has been promoted as an innovative and bold model that supports families, young children and early childhood educators alike,” she said. “Advocates and lawmakers at national and state levels are looking to D.C. to lead the way and lay a path for them. Failure to continue this program erodes trust locally and nationally at a time when it is most needed. This is a vital program that must be protected from any cuts.”

“I think the mayor didn't know what she was in for when she did this, because oftentimes, this population of early care givers and moms doesn’t have the power to hold electeds accountable,” RCCF’s Schumacher said. “But that was a big mistake in D.C. because of the work LaDon has been doing. Spaces in Action has been very, very intentionally working with providers, going to child care centers and talking to educators and parents and getting the word out to the larger community. This is a great case study example of what happens when you invest in power-building on the ground. Now, the community hopefully will hold the mayor and the council accountable for promises they made and are now trying to undo.”

It’s too early to say whether the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund will survive the budget process. The chairman of the D.C. Council has said he will the oppose the recommended cuts, including the elimination of the Pay Equity Fund. In upcoming weeks, reviews, hearings and votes will be held and the budget will be finalized in June or July.

The power of early care advocacy funding

Whatever the eventual fate of D.C.’s Pay Equity Fund, Schumacher believes that Spaces in Action and RCCF’s other grantees are building the momentum required to create systemic change. Some examples spotlighted in its recent report: A diverse coalition in Minnesota worked to ensure that a portion of budget surplus funds — $366 million in 2023 and over $1 billion in continued funding — went to early care, including compensation for early educators. In California, advocates succeeded in eliminating child care fees for lower-income families. The state of Louisiana made its largest investment in child care in close to a decade — $52 million. And in New Mexico, where a ballot measure made early childhood education a right, a coalition of parents and educators are working to ensure that educators receive fair compensation.

These gains reflects philanthropy’s power to put its relatively modest resources to work backing much larger commitments and changes in the realm of the public sector — early childhood being just one of many areas where that’s possible. And RCCF has plans to expand its work. In the next five years, it intends to raise $25 million in additional funds, with the aim of supporting early care advocacy efforts in 34 states and Washington D.C.; its long-term goal is to support organizations in all 50 states, as well as D.C.

“One thing we recognize at RCCF is that no amount of philanthropic private dollars that we have in our membership is going to actually be able to solve this problem,” Schumacher said. “What we can do is be very strategic and intentional in building the base and the leaders and the folks who really know how to do this, and provide the resources they need to do what they know how to do best. I think philanthropy sometimes thinks it can solve the problem itself, and we really can't. But we can resource the kind of social movement building that will solve the problem for everyone.”

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