First Children’s Finance provides loans and business-development assistance to high-quality child care businesses serving low- and moderate-income families.
Project supports states’ efforts to strengthen their abilities to ensure accessible, sustainable child care businesses
Child care in America is a $47 billion industry comprised of small, independent businesses, franchises, and nonprofits and employing more than two million people. Approximately 12 million children under age five are in some form of child care in the U.S., but the country faces a severe child care shortage. The dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism have further exposed and exacerbated this crisis.
To confront those issues head-on, a Minneapolis-based national nonprofit, First Children’s Finance, has created an innovative national collaboration to strengthen states’ efforts to coordinate their local child care systems.