What do semiconductors have in common with child care? An AI query (made possible, of course, by a semiconductor or two) provides a surprisingly astute response: “Both involve managing complex systems with careful attention to detail, adaptability and long-term planning to ensure optimal outcomes.” These words could serve as the unofficial mission statement of the Investing in America Child Care Partnership, which is designed to fortify child care systems and increase access to high-quality, affordable care in communities with substantial numbers employed in manufacturing.
The partnership, initiated by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and The Kresge Foundation, and now funded by seven other philanthropic organizations, has raised $9.6 million to date. The group was spurred by a clause in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which is intended to expand manufacturing in the U.S. (CHIPS stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors.”)
The bill requires manufacturers applying for over $150 million in CHIPS funding to submit plans to provide child care for both facility and construction workers. Jonathan Hui, a senior program officer at The Kresge Foundation, credits designers of the package for “capturing the link between infrastructure and child care that is often underlooked.”
Katie Beckmann, the national policy director at the Packard Foundation, agrees that this intersection is key. “This isn’t only about expansion and creation of manufacturing in parts of the country that have often been left behind,” Beckmann says. “Business begets business, which further drives the need for quality, affordable child care in these communities. Ultimately, we hope this work will strengthen our argument for additional public dollars to be put into child care. It also has the potential to enlist small and big businesses as allies.”
The philanthropic partnership was announced in June 2024 at the inaugural National Child Care Innovation Summit, an event centered on the critical role of child care for working parents. During the summit, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, “Child care is not only a social issue or a ‘women’s issue.’ It is also an economic issue. In fact, I’d argue it’s one of the most critical economic issues affecting families, businesses and communities today. The lack of investment in our care infrastructure is costing us dearly. There’s a generation of Americans in their prime working years caught between their jobs and caring for children or elderly relatives.”
The partnership aims to increase child care supply and improve the quality of care and is beginning with pilots in Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and New Hampshire. Child care is especially hard to find in these four states, and employees showing up to build or operate the new facilities will need help locating and paying for safe and supportive child care settings so that their children can thrive while they work.
The foundations are developing their plans in collaboration with leaders and advocates in each state. “We’re coming together and co-creating child care solutions that expand child care supply and enhance quality,” says Beckmann, who adds that designing solutions that meet the needs of the whole community takes time and patience.
“We need a national strategy for early childhood,” Hui argues, “in the sense that there needs to be a national commitment to investing in early childhood, but how that shows up in community is deeply contextual.”
Existing infrastructure and relationships in each state will help the partnership to identify opportunities and connect the dots among:
- Businesses: This includes the manufacturer, child care providers and other community businesses that play a role in the local economy.
- Governments: This includes state and local departments and elected officials who can provide guidance on the regulatory environment in which new child care programs will arise.
- Advocates: This includes groups representing the interests of families and child care providers who can share insights that can inform investments and decisions.
- Funding Leaders: This includes, most notably, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), which are uniquely suited to blend and grade federal and state funding streams to get the maximum benefit out of each public and private investment.
Learning from Past Partnerships
The Investing in America Child Care Partnership intends to draw lessons from existing and emerging solutions that are already underway. For example, while not part of the partnership, a new facility on Detroit’s east side embodies the type of project that CDFIs can help usher into existence. The 15,000-square-foot McClellan Early Childhood Center features eight classrooms providing 96 new seats for early learners. This project, which took five years to implement and cost $8.75 million, offers the stakeholders involved in the partnership a road map for realizing plans in partnership with community.
A staff member from Matrix Human Services gives a tour of the new McClellan Early Childhood Center in Detroit, August 2024. (Fola Studios)“The lessons learned from building McClellan are going to be critical to how we think about blending and braiding facilities funding,” says Hui.
Kirby Burkholder, president of core business solutions at IFF, the CDFI that facilitated the McClellan project, explains that CDFIs have a unique value for the ecosystem: “Manufacturers use language like ‘employee attraction, employee retention, employee satisfaction.’ We use language like ‘transformational community development, aligning programmatic and facilities quality.’ But we’re talking about the same thing. We’re the translators.”
Burkholder says CDFIs like IFF (which just wrapped up administering $59 million of American Rescue Plan money through the state of Michigan that went out to 1,005 providers), Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Low Income Investment Fund organize and activate capital. “That’s how government money reaches Main Street,” he explains. “We’re CDFIs that have evolved a whole infrastructure, with a community and data insights team that does the needs analysis that informs decision making.”
Taking time to listen and collaborate does not detract from the urgency of the crisis that the partnership is tackling. “Across the country,” Hui notes, “working families are worrying every day about the trade off between providing high-quality care for their children and being able to enter or reenter the workforce or stay in the workforce.”
Successful partnerships, he maintains, will generate not just an increased supply of quality child care in the communities they are targeting but also “longstanding systems solutions that really change how our country thinks about child care.”
At a time when government funding of all kinds — including the CHIPS Act itself — could be under scrutiny, philanthropic support can make a difference in making sure investments work on the local level.
Beckmann notes an additional benefit of success: “Demonstrating that government can work for its people. This is an important moment to learn about what works and doesn’t work in creating a child care ecosystem that helps children and families thrive.”
One of the philanthropic organizations that helps fund the Investing in America Child Care Partnership is Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. That foundation also provides financial support to Early Learning Nation’s parent company, The 74.
Mark Swartz writes for Early Learning Nation and the Stanford Center on Early Childhood about efforts to improve early care and education. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife and two children.
