MCF Giving Forum, Fall 2006 - Early Childhood Funding

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Fall 2006

Early Childhood Funding: Birth of an Issue

by Colleen Frankhart

This fall, about 60,000 Minnesota children entered the public-school system as kindergartners. On their first day of school, 30,000 of them were already lagging behind.

Chue Yange proudly shows his skill in writing his name in a Words Work! program.
Photo courtesy of The Saint Paul Foundation.

It's a startling statistic: Minnesota Department of Education research shows that more than half of kindergartners lack the basic language, math and social/emotional skills they need to succeed in school. Many of them have been to preschool but even if they entered those programs at age 3, they were probably already behind.

"Brain-development research has brought into sharp focus what happens in the first three years," says Jane Kretzmann, senior program officer at the Bush Foundation, which has funded training for caregivers of infants and toddlers since the early 1990s.

"We know now that if our youngest children struggle in their environments in the first years of life, costly interventions will be required to prepare them for school and for life."

Early Education Means Later Success

"We know now that if our youngest children struggle in their environments in the first years of life, costly interventions will be required to prepare them for school and for life."
— Jane Kretzmann, Bush Foundation

For years, many Minnesota foundations made grants to child care programs as a way of helping parents become economically self-sufficient. In the last decade, however, the issue has expanded to include examination of the ways early caregivers contribute to children's educational development. Research now shows that learning begins in infancy, and the quality of care that children receive before starting school has a lasting impact on their futures.

In the landmark 2000 report From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development, the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine concluded that all children are born ready to learn, and that their earliest environments and relationships have a profound effect on their development.

The equation is deceptively simple: Children who enter school nurtured and ready to learn contribute more to society as adults, since they typically earn higher incomes, commit fewer crimes and use fewer social services. Art Rolnick, senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, posits that because of these factors, investment in early childhood yields an impressive rate of return not only to children, but to society at large — up to 16 percent annually, compared to long-term stock market returns of 6 to 7 percent. Research like this has led funders to look beyond the basics of child care to ensure that all children have access to developmental opportunities that lay the foundation for success in school.

Karen Kelley-Ariwoola

The equation may be simple, but the issue is complex. One of the challenges to ensuring quality care is the fact that early childhood learning takes place in many settings, ranging from licensed day care centers and Head Start programs to the homes of family members or neighbors who provide care. "It's not a coherent system," says Karen Kelley-Ariwoola, vice president of community philanthropy at The Minneapolis Foundation. "Not every child is in a licensed day care center, nor does every parent want his or her child in one; many are more comfortable having their children cared for by family, friends or neighbors who reflect their own cultural values."

With such a decentralized system, it's difficult to support caregivers in the best practices for helping children learn and develop — an issue that the Bush Foundation is exploring in its Child Development Successor Program, which includes all settings, both licensed and unlicensed, in which infants and toddlers are found. A key focus of the Bush program has been to support learning projects that reach the informal networks of family, friends and neighbor caregivers, and to share information with other funders on how best to serve them.

A State Funding Gap

Claire Chang

Changes in government funding present another challenge, since the early childhood care system relies heavily on state and federal dollars. While the evidence for investing in early childhood has grown exponentially over the last decade, funding has decreased markedly. During the 2003 and 2005 legislative sessions, state lawmakers cut more than $200 million from early childhood programs, including child care assistance, Head Start and Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE). Many Minnesota foundations have made it a priority to do whatever they can to help fill the gap.

In some cases, that means funding direct services to improve educational outcomes. The Saint Paul Foundation's highly successful Words Work! early literacy initiative, currently used in two East Metro counties, emphasizes data collection and analysis that drive program improvements to ensure the greatest possible impact. Foundation staff members work closely with teachers and administrators to monitor and refine the program.

"For us to come to a better understanding of this issue, it's crucial for us to walk hand-in-hand with the people who are providing services to kids," says Claire Chang, the foundation's director of program planning and special initiatives. "We're committed to driving change with educators, not dictating to them how to use our funds."

"For us to come to a better understanding of this issue, it's critical for us to walk hand-in-hand with the people who are providing services to kids."
— Claire Chang, The Saint Paul Foundation

Chang and her colleagues are also sharing Words Work! results with other nonprofits, because most of the data used to encourage investment in early childhood comes from states other than Minnesota. "We think that homegrown data will help make the case to legislators in a more powerful way," she explains. "More importantly, the data reveal that our strategies are working with hundreds of Head Start children, all of them low-income, and many who knew little or no English on the first day of school."

Other funders take an approach like that of The Minneapolis Foundation, which focuses on grantmaking for advocacy and systems change. "We believe that's where we get the most return on our investment," says Kelley-Ariwoola. "We need to convince policymakers that early childhood programs simply can't operate on a shoestring. We seem to be walking away from our commitment as a democracy to have all of our children ready for school."

Kelley-Ariwoola points out that in the quest for universal access to high-quality early childhood programs, it's important not to lose sight of who is most in need. "We need to push for more conversations about disparities along race and class lines, and legislators need to be reminded at every opportunity that poor people, people of color and immigrants need access to quality care," she says.

Collaboration Is Crucial

Dean Phillips

Whatever their grantmaking frameworks, foundation staff and trustees have come to understand that this issue is so important and so complicated that collaboration is crucial — not only among funders, but also with education professionals, business leaders, parents, health care providers and others. "It doesn't make sense for us to duplicate efforts when we're all aiming for the same target," says Dean Phillips, president of Phillips Distilling Company and trustee of The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation. "If we work in silos, we'll spend far too much time and money getting up to speed instead of getting the work done."

Kretzmann agrees that she and her peers share the same sense of urgency: "We have the opportunity and the privilege to change the system, but the landscape of this issue is so wide that we have to work in partnership. If we don't, we simply won't be able to see the big picture."

One collaboration involves the six Minnesota Initiative Foundations (MIFs) in the Minnesota Early Childhood Initiative, which has helped develop 65 early childhood coalitions across the state. "Our model brings people together to talk about the most pressing needs in their communities," says Lynn Haglin, vice president of the Northland Foundation and director of its KIDS PLUS initiative.

Jane Kretzmann

"Every community then develops a vision that serves as a road map for action to drive change," Haglin continues. "Action begins with initial activities like early childhood education fairs that build awareness, rally support and help citizens gain confidence to tackle longer-term projects. Coalitions go on to implement more comprehensive projects, such as home visits for new parents and babies, kindergarten transition programs that connect families to school before their children enter kindergarten, early childhood centers that are integrated into schools, and networks with dental health providers to increase access for rural children."

Other collaborative efforts in which Minnesota foundations participate include the Minnesota Early Childhood Funders Network, the public-private partnership known as the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation and the advocacy organization Ready 4 K.

School Readiness Is Everybody's Business

Increasingly, foundations statewide are working to engage business leaders who can direct resources and legislative attention to the early childhood issue in the discussion. The message to businesses is that investment in early childhood programs will bring returns both now and in the future: parents whose children have quality care are more productive workers, and those children grow up to be stronger members of the workforce. Minnesota Business for Early Learning (MnBEL), an organization of more than 200 business leaders, was formed to encourage businesses to support early childhood learning programs.

Lynn Haglin

"To ensure our ongoing success as businesses, we need to make certain that the pool of candidates from which we choose our future and current employees is socially adaptable, educated, knowledgeable and skilled," says MnBEL chair Al Stroucken, chairman, president and CEO of H.B. Fuller Company. "We must start at the beginning, by ensuring that the youngest Minnesotans enter school ready to learn."

Early childhood issues are also of utmost importance to current workers. "As business leaders, we need to retain parents in our workforce in order to remain competitive and successful," Stroucken says. "For them to actively engage in work, they need to know their children are not only being well cared for, but that they are in an environment where they can grow, thrive and ultimately be positioned for success. We businesspeople can't simply shrug child care and development off and say it is a family matter."

Encouraging collaboration among grantees is another way in which many funders help strengthen the early childhood network. Kelley-Ariwoola points out that early childhood funding is tightly interwoven with a host of other issues. "People who work in affordable housing are always dealing with child care concerns," she says, "and the same is true for those who work in domestic violence, health care and many other areas. That's why we bring our grantees together frequently — to try to connect the dots to see where organizations can work together and support one another."

A Call to Action

Al Stroucken

Early childhood funding is a hot issue this election season, and an early childhood caucus at the Minnesota legislature has grown to include more than 130 senators and representatives. Next year, Minnesota lawmakers will consider a proposal to fund affordable, high-quality child care for all children who need it.

Phillips says that researchers have long since made the case for significant investment in early childhood; now, it's the responsibility of funders, parents and all citizens to demand that legislators ensure adequate funding.

"Minnesota can be, and should be, a national leader in this area," Phillips says. "We're very good at having conversations about public policy, but now it's time for us to transform conversation into action. Every one of us is responsible for calling on the leaders of our state to act, and for pointing out to them that we somehow manage to find dollars for a lot of programs that are far less important than preparing our children to learn. There's no other way to say it: Investing in early childhood is not a luxury."

While foundations and corporations cannot fill the gap in early childhood development funding that is rightly the responsibility of state and federal government, the strategic thinking and productive collaborations in the nonprofit and philanthropy sector are helping to initiate and direct the discussion of ways to achieve positive outcomes. Early childhood advocates see government's role as growing these important initiatives so that every child in Minnesota is ready to thrive.

More Information from the Fall 2006 Edition of Giving Forum

Thank you to the sponsors of this issue of Giving Forum:
$5,000 Sponsor	Anonymous Sponsor
$3,000 Partner	Minnesota Initiative Foundations