Catalyzing Collective Power:
ECFC 2024–2025 Report
Over the past year, families and communities faced significant challenges, including growing economic pressures, reductions in public funding, and uncertainty across the systems they rely on. Yet communities continued to lead, organize, and build solutions rooted in their own experiences and priorities.
The Early Childhood Funders Collaborative’s (ECFC) Catalyzing Collective Power 2024–2025 Report shares how ECFC members are turning relationships into action, creating space for shared learning, coordinated response, and long-term investment in the systems and communities that shape children’s well-being.
In 2025, ECFC continued to serve as a place where funders make sense of complexity together and move from analysis to action. Through ongoing connection and collaboration, members strengthened their ability to respond to emerging challenges and advance strategies that support children, families, and communities.
A community of funders moving from connection to action
ECFC’s strength comes from the relationships built among funders who are committed to advancing more effective, equity-focused philanthropy.
In 2025, ECFC engaged:
- 75+ member organizations
- 500+ participants across in-person and virtual convenings
- 43 virtual briefings, huddles, and peer learning sessions
These connections created opportunities for funders to share strategies, learn from one another, and respond collectively to the challenges facing young children and families.
What collective action made possible
The report highlights how ECFC members translated relationships into action across several areas of work.
Aligning resources during moments of urgency
When communities faced rapid changes and growing needs, ECFC members came together to assess challenges, share information, and move resources with greater coordination.
Through this collective response, members aligned nearly $20 million to defend the family safety net and support grantee partners navigating rapid change.
Investing in community leadership
ECFC’s pooled funds reflect a commitment to approaches that center community knowledge, leadership, and priorities.
The Raising Child Care Fund supported grassroots organizations led by parents, early educators, and community advocates across 19 states and Washington, D.C., helping build organizing infrastructure and advance policy change.
The Racial Justice and Equity Fund expanded philanthropy’s understanding of early childhood by investing in organizations addressing the broader conditions that shape child and family well-being—including health care, housing, economic inclusion, and community power.
Building relationships rooted in learning and accountability
ECFC’s work is grounded in the belief that lasting progress requires relationships, trust, and a commitment to learning from communities. Through member gatherings, learning opportunities, and partnerships, ECFC continues to support philanthropy’s ability to engage with complexity and invest in strategies shaped by lived experience and community leadership.
Catalyzing Collective Power highlights how relationships, alignment, and shared learning can help philanthropy respond with greater clarity and purpose in support of children, families, and communities.