The Raising Child Care Fund is an initiative of ECFC that pools private foundation dollars to give grants to groups that lift up the voices of families, early educators, and allies—working alongside them to build powerful coalitions to transform child care and expand equity.
What Our Grantee Partners Are Saying:
"It is important to measure the benchmarks of organizing because although we may not be able to report policy wins, grassroots efforts are happening. Building a grassroots movement takes time. We need to acknowledge that the work hasn’t stopped and that people are committed to working toward change even if it’s not making headlines."
Amy Jo Hutchinson, Rattle the Windows
“New Mexico has the highest income eligibility for child care assistance in the country, the best hazard pay for pandemic child care workers, and now we’re fighting for living wages for early educators and a new system designed by parents and educators. All with RCCF’s support.”
Matthew Henderson, Olé Education Fund
“Thanks to funding from RCCF, we have been able to expand the base we organize to bring power to hundreds more parents, providers and early childhood educators across the state of Minnesota.”
Lydia Boerboom, ISAIAH
"It doesn’t make sense to focus on child care without addressing racial and gender equity or recognizing the interconnected historical, economic, and political issues robbing children of their potential."
Lenice Emmanuel, Alabama Institute for Social Justice
“The well-being of children, particularly Black and Brown children and families is my life’s mission.”
Mackenzie Grayson, Alliance for Quality Education
“If we don’t support the high quality of child care in all forms of care, then we’re not actually doing what we claim to do.”
Lorena Garcia, Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition
“We work for and with the people. And there has been magic listening to people.”
Ashley Shelton, Power Coalition for Equity
As a country, we are three years into the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the child care sector and on the children, families, and early educators living and working in communities frequently left out of key policy-making decisions. Since March 2020, the number of RCCF’s contributing foundations has nearly tripled, enabling resources to flow quickly to support community-based responses to this crisis.
RCCF has become a powerful philanthropic learning laboratory to center racial equity and power-building alongside community leaders most proximate to the country’s most pressing social challenges, including the broken child care system. More than three-quarters of our grantee partners have Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leaders. While RCCF underwrites our grantee partners’ capacity to combat the historic race and gender inequities built into child care in America, our general operating grants also support their community-based power-building strategies to address intersectional barriers to child and family well-being.
RCCF is an active philanthropic partner in the national movement to transform child care into a system that works for all families and for all those who care for and educate young children. RCCF partners with 17 community organizations in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Our grantee partners are leading the charge to expand equity in child care. This report celebrates key wins and highlights their collective impact in 2022.
RCCF is aiming to achieve a major transformation of child care so that all families can choose the care they want and need. And so that all early educators receive compensation commensurate with the value they add to society.
By the end of 2022, RCCF raised $11.5 million in private foundation funding enabling community organizers in 17 states to lift voices, build power, and expand equity in demanding and creating solutions to this ongoing crisis.
