Barbara Reisman has dedicated her career to advocating for high-quality early childhood education for children birth to five. Since 2016, she has served as Senior Advisor to the Maher Charitable Foundation, and has played a leading role in the Foundation’s efforts to reduce inequality by making substantial investments in policy advocacy and programs for young children and their families, including expanded access to high-quality early childhood care and education.
As she transitions to retirement at the end of 2023, she shared these reflections with us.
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I joined ECFC in 1997, when I became Executive Director of the Schumann Fund for New Jersey. It was quite a shift. Prior to that, I had interacted with ECFC members as a grantseeker as Executive Director of the Child Care Action Campaign (from 1986-1997). I immediately felt welcome in ECFC’s member community.
As I look forward to retiring, I want to say farewell and express my gratitude for all I have learned from this wonderful and growing group of colleagues.
On my 20th anniversary of ECFC membership, ECFC asked me what I saw as the most critical policy issues facing the early childhood field. After 25 years in early childhood philanthropy, my answer is the same: we need Money, Money, Money.
We know that no amount of philanthropic investment can create and sustain the equitable opportunities that will enable our youngest children and their families to thrive. We need substantial and sustained public investment in our children and families – paid leave, universal access to health care, culturally competent caregivers, and a system of high-quality early care and education that is responsive to parents and caregivers’ work life needs, provides children with the care and education that helps them develop and pays the people who do the work salaries that reflect the importance and value of their work.
What can philanthropy do?
Think of philanthropic funds as reparations.
Philanthropy can…
- Support efforts that build power, especially at the state and local levels and in communities and organizations led by people of color.
- Identify and promote philanthropic practices that build trust, focus on equity, and support policy change.
- Simplify the grant seeking and grant reporting process.
- Make multi-year grants, give general operating support, and include community leaders in the decision-making process.
- Invest in advocacy, and in the people who do the work on the ground – advocates, community leaders, and early childhood providers.
Continue to connect with each other and with community leaders, parents, and providers. Center the work of advocates and activists. Check your institutional ego at the door. The people doing the work deserve the credit!
I am gratified by ECFC’s growth, by the increased participation by state and local philanthropies, by the emergence of new young leaders in the field and in philanthropy and especially by ECFC’s focus on racial equity and social and economic justice.