The Raising Child Care Fund (RCCF), a project of the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative, is pleased to welcome four new partners into its national grantee network of grassroots organizations working to rebuild and reform child care in the United States. RCCF shifts private foundation funding to organizers who lift parent, early educator, caregiver, and ally voices. RCCF grantees increase parent and early educator participation in crafting equitable policy solutions to the national child care crisis. Twelve foundations have pledged a total of $6.9 million to the pool from 2019 through 2023.
RCCF’s newest grantees are:
 The Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition provides advocacy and training for parents and child care providers to meaningfully engage in their children’s education, close the opportunity gap, and ensure successful educational outcomes. This grant will engage informal child care providers and the parents they serve in the decision-making as Colorado launches a new Department of Early Childhood and a universal prekindergarten program. CSPC will work to hold these new departments accountable to family and providers needs. |  The Louisiana Coalition for Power and Justice is a coalition of community-based organizations that educate and empower voters across Louisiana focusing on communities of color. This grant will enable the Coalition to build on its Roadmap to Recovery and She Leads fellowship program for Black women as they engage parents, early educators and caregivers in discussions about the barriers they face and what solutions they recommend to create an equitable child care system. |
 WEPOWER activates changemakers – parents, educators, and practitioners – across the St. Louis region to reimagine and redesign the early childhood education system to ensure access and affordability for Black and Latinx families living in poverty. WEPOWER and the Gateway Early Childhood Alliance will use this grant to help to launch and scale an initiative of diverse grassroots and grasstops stakeholders to increase the equitable allocation of funding for early childhood education. |  MomsRising began as a group of moms coming together for economic  justice for women, mothers, and families and has grown into over a million members across the country. In West Virginia, MomsRising will partner with on-the-ground organizers at Rattle the Windows to ramp up a child care-focused educational campaign that informs national policy and builds parent power in the state. |
To date, 15 groups across the country receive RCCF grants to build power and hold elected officials accountable to make the child care system work better for children, families, and early educators. Over the last 18 months, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed to the nation what early childhood stakeholders already knew: child care sits at the nexus of racial, gender, and economic injustice. One in five child care jobs were lost at the height of the pandemic, and reform to the nation’s child care system is a key part of the American Families Plan developed by the Biden Administration. These grassroots groups have been at the forefront of efforts to provide relief to child care providers and the families they serve.
Learn more about the Raising Child Care Fund here, or contact Rachel Schumacher, Project Director, at [email protected].