An essential component of First Children’s effectiveness is identifying diverse groups of community leaders to work on common goals for quality child care. Iowa is fortunate to have many community leaders dedicated to this goal, such as the Des Moines United Way with its Women’s Leadership Initiative and the Early Childhood Task Team in the Cedar Valley region. Both are making significant contributions to the success of child care businesses in their regions of Iowa.

With support from the Iowa Department of Human Services, Iowa Community Empowerment, R.J. McElroy Trust and Principal Financial Group Foundation, First Children’s Finance has launched its Growth Fund program, conducted statewide training for child care providers and recruited business and child care leaders to serve as volunteers and advisors. First Children’s Loan Fund staff members are receiving numerous inquiries from Iowa child care centers in need of financing for expansion, facility improvement or quality enhancements. Growth Fund participants, when asked in a survey to prioritize how First Children’s was most helpful to them, rated consulting as #1 and the advice and support from the Growth Fund Advisors as a close second. First Children’s continues to look for new ways to provide longer-term relationship-based consulting for the most positive outcomes for child care businesses.

Growth Fund in Iowa
Four centers were chosen to participate in Class 1 of First Children’s Growth Fund program: Cedar Valley Preschool and Child Care Center (Cedar Falls), Xochipilli Early Education Center (Des Moines), Child Care Junction (Boone) and Elkader Childcare and Learning Center (Elkader). The Growth Fund helps providers identify and tackle critical business challenges. These four centers received consulting support to develop business plans, along with grants to implement what they have identified in their plans. The four centers have completed their business plans, presented them to the Growth Fund advisors, and started implementing their plans’ goals and objectives. In addition, they have received marketing support, executive coaching, help with board development, fundraising coaching and advice about a range of issues from structure to facility improvements.

MariLynn Pierce, a Growth Fund advisor, comments on the benefits of the Growth Fund, “I know centers that succeed have policies and procedures in place as well as good boards of directors. The two providers selected from our corner of the state have grown immensely from the standpoint of the stability of the programs. They are more financially stable, and they have implemented marketing and board improvement strategies. Both directors went from apprehensive and negative about their ability to be successful to excited about where their programs are now and where they can go.”

A unique feature of the Iowa Growth Fund has been fundraising “Think Tanks” for participating centers. The centers invite community leaders to brainstorm with them ways to generate additional dollars for quality enhancements and other priorities. The results have been amazing. Linda Jacoby, executive director of the Cedar Valley Preschool and Child Care Center, Cedar Falls, describes the experience. “We invited the best and brightest from government, fundraising, business, the board of directors, and we even invited the mayor. It was a way for people to get together, and we didn’t ask for money. We asked them for the best ideas about how to fund the renovation of this 35-year old building. We need new flooring, cupboards, ceiling tiles and much more. We got wonderful ideas from the brainstorming. For example, the mayor has hooked us up with City Hall to get HUD funding. One of the local funding organizations got us on the agenda for Metro Funders, a group of local grantors. We accessed a variety of grants for capital funding. It looks like we already have grant funds of $85,000 and a goal of $150,000. We have a strong collaboration in this community. And it is helping us so much.”

Iowa Growth Fund centers benefit from the business expertise of volunteer advisors. Their enthusiastic commitment to First Children’s and quality child care has been extraordinary. Mason Fromm, Signs & Designs is a Growth Fund Advisor, “Each increase in quality and each increase in child care capacity is going to help with the broader economy, building a better community tomorrow. If we have a high emphasis on quality child care, people will move to town. Anything we can do to improve the quality of child care improves Cedar Valley.” Iowa Growth Fund advisors include:

• David Arens, Wells Fargo
• Robert Bakker, U.S. Bank
• Kate Bennett, Iowa Community Empowerment
• Kelly Christensen, Principal Financial Group
• Katie Feldmann, First National Bank
• Mason Fromm, Signs & Designs
• JoAnne Lane
• MariLynn Pierce, CCR&R Region 2
• Cathy Wheatcraft, CCR&R Region 4

Building the skills of Iowa child care providers
One of First Children’s areas of expertise is in best business practices essential for the success of child care providers. That expertise is quickly and easily conveyed through training at conferences, in person and online. During the past months, First Children’s has conducted training for Iowa child care professionals on marketing, nonprofit governance, fundraising, financial planning and management and effective communications. Most recently, a full-to-capacity fundraising webinar helped providers understand ways to increase revenue through gifts and grants. The webinar, which reached all corners of the state, was approved by DHS for two hours of credit for child care training. Jody Caswell, program manager, Iowa Department of Human Services Child Care Unit, reflected on the relationship with First Children’s Finance. “We were looking for an entity that could help child care programs with all kinds of business issues – board development to cash flow to how to do your taxes. One of our priorities is training, and First Children’s Finance provides important training to providers on child care business issues. Their webinars are an exciting way to deliver statewide training, and they are covering topics we wouldn’t have covered in the past. They have done training at our Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children and will do so again in October. First Children’s has also done training for CCR&R staff. This is essential because providers come to CCR&Rs for help.”  Growth Fund advisor Mason Fromm puts it this way, “I want more people to realize that child care isn’t just babysitting, it’s a profession. The work First Children’s is doing is helping child care providers focus more on the kids and less on the day-to-day stuff. We can teach them about business and help them find the best route for their businesses.”

Watch for announcements of upcoming First Children’s Finance opportunities at www.firstchildrensfinance.org. You can also find many of the Power Points used in training posted on the First Children’s site.