A mapping tool created in Philadelphia to determine where child care is most needed is now spreading to other areas in that region and beyond.
was produced by , a community development financial institution, or CDFI, that lends money and makes grants to create things like child-care centers, affordable housing, health centers, and spaces for art and culture.
The map, which was launched in 2014, came about after the fund was approached by the , a local nonprofit, for help to determine where the child-care gaps were in Philadelphia.
The Reinvestment Fund bills the map, which is updated annually, as the first complete source of information for all of the child-care options in the city. It provides the location of 3,000 providers in Philadelphia, both licensed and unlicensed, and the number of children from birth to 5 who live near those providers. The analysts also looked at other data including information about employment since some parents prefer care that鈥檚 close to where they work versus where they live.
鈥淗aving all of that information in a single place allows us to think about where additional high-quality supply was most needed in low-income communities and what the opportunities might be for building that supply,鈥� said Elliot Weinbaum, the program director of the at William Penn.
Reinvestment Fund has now created similar child-care maps in Passaic County and Newark, N.J., the five-county metro region of Atlanta, and in Washington, D.C.
A New Funding Model
The foundation spent about $20 million to support the creation of Philadelphia鈥檚 Childcare map and the (FFQ), a targeted investment fund that鈥檚 designed to increase the availability of quality early-learning programs for low-income families in Philadelphia.
Since the Fund for Quality was developed in 2014, it鈥檚 created more than 1,500 new, high-quality child-care seats in the city, and plans are underway to create about 1,000 more by 2020.
Weinbaum says it鈥檚 an important resource for child-care providers in the city because the industry has such narrow profit margins that traditional loans are often hard to obtain.
Bevin Parker-Cerkez is the senior director of early-childhood education in the Reinvestment Fund鈥檚 lending and investing group. She says the information gained from the map is used in the fund鈥檚 loan application and helps her team to make lending decisions.
鈥淲e already know subsidy is scarce nationally, particularly in early childhood and educational resources,鈥� said Parker-Cerkez. 鈥淭o have that level of detail and data around that, so that when we鈥檙e making these investment in child-care operators we can target the most vulnerable populations is really a great thing,鈥�
Reinvestment Fund is also working with industry leaders in the nation鈥檚 capital to help them create their own version of the Fund for Quality.
鈥淭he efforts here in Philly show that if you have really good information about a sector, and if you have good resources, particularly those that have some flexibility to them but discipline as well, you can solve a problem,鈥� said Ira Goldstein, the president of Reinvestment Fund鈥檚 policy solutions group.
The Fund for Quality is a partnership between Reinvestment Fund and the that provides child-care providers with business planning assistance and facilities-related financing to help them expand their businesses.
The Vanguard Strong Start for Kids program also supports the FFQ financially.
Photo: As a result of multiple FFQ grant awards, a previously vacant building now offers early-childhood education and after care for 156 children at the Children鈥檚 Playhouse Early Learning Center in Philadelphia. Courtesy Reinvestment Fund