So, you’ve navigated the political landmines, partnered with a variety of agencies and organizations, and found the money you need to launch an innovative local child care subsidy with the goal of making care more affordable for families and strengthening your workforce. What now? 

Historically, the percentage of families participating in assistance programs for which they are eligible has always been surprisingly low, even when funding is not an issue. That  unfortunate reality holds true at all levels: federal, state, and local. The root causes for this disconnect often vary from program to program, but some are more common than others. In the case of a local or regional child care fund, this might include: 

• Lack of awareness among families that meet eligibility requirements
• Overly burdensome application processes and bureaucratic red tape
• Underinvestment in fund administration, including staffing and infrastructure, leading to lengthy turnaround times and poor experiences
• Lack of buy-in from the provider community
• Misconceptions about what the fund is and who it's for

Finding the money is just the first step. What you do next will often determine whether your program can actually deliver on its intended outcomes. More often than not, that boils down to two things: marketing and infrastructure. 

We’ve been monitoring the steadily growing local child care fund landscape with interest, talking to program leaders, and sharing stories of the funds that are moving the needle in their respective communities. For this article, we’ve curated the strategies that have been at the heart of those success stories. 

How to Get the Word Out

1. Start With an Advisory Committee

Given the aforementioned importance of stakeholder buy-in, significant future headaches can be prevented by simply giving everyone a seat at the table before any major decisions are made. The “who” here will be vital. At a minimum, you’ll want a diverse group of people representing: 

• The business community (Chamber of Commerce leadership, workforce development boards, major employers, etc...)
• The provider community (school districts, centers, family child care voices, etc...)
• Resrouce and referral organizations
• Departments of Health and Human Services (or similar)
• Families/parents
• Fund administrators
• Elected officials
• Influential community leaders

Trust and credibility are paramount for committee participation. Avoid highly polarizing figures that could tarnish the fund’s reputation through association.  The formation of such a committee is not enough in itself, you’ll need strong leadership to coordinate meetings, communicate objectives, and gather and synthesize feedback. 

When done right, everybody should feel like their voice was heard and their perspective considered, even when every idea can’t be implemented. These committee members will play a major role in spreading the word, and you want that word to be as positive as possible. 

2. Clarify Roles, Responsibilities, and Measures of Accountability

The easiest way to lose momentum on an exciting new initiative is for nobody to have a clear understanding of who owns which aspects of its administration. This is a recurring theme in ECE from the state level down, and it’s one that’s easily avoidable with enough foresight and planning in the implementation stages of a new fund. 

• Who's going to be the main point of contact for media outreach?
• Who's going to spearhead marketing, communications, and public relations efforts?
• Who's going to monitor the fund and maintain compliance oversight?
• Who's going to be the final decision maker for the fund's administrative budget?
• Who's going to be the lead contact(s) for program questions and technical assistance needs from families and providers?
• Who's going to report back to the funders on the reach and impact of the program, and on what cadence?

Those are just a few of the questions you’ll want to think through during the planning phase. The important thing is to remove ambiguity wherever possible. Draw up clear process documentation with ownership and continue adding to it as new scenarios come up. Consider creating a shared RACI matrix for clear visualization.   

3. Stand Up an Easy-to-Navigate Website or Landing Page

This will be your most important non-human resource for all things fund-related. Not only will the website serve as the primary resource for family and community education, it will also be the hub to which you direct traffic from any campaigns you run. If you have the capacity to build a new site on a new domain (e.g. samplecountychildcarefund.com), you’ll have an easier time marketing the fund later, but it’s also ok to start small with a single page on an existing site. All partner organizations should plan to link directly to the website or landing page from their own websites to amplify this collaborative work.

Whichever path you choose, an effective  web presence should include the following elements: 

• Clear separation for each stakeholder; e.g. a page or section for families, one for providers, and one for donors
• Background information; e.g. Why was the fund created? How is it funded? Who is it for?
• Eligibility criteria
• Frequently asked questions; e.g. What documents do I need before I start my application? Which providers accept the subsidy? How are funds distributed?
• A donation link with accompanying tax information
• An integrated enrollment application (see #4 below)

4. Offer Integrated Online Enrollment

The overarching theme of your family-facing efforts should be “make it as easy as possible.” Nothing slows momentum like a parent taking all the right steps to learn about a program only to be told they need to complete a paper application and hand it in to a local office. You also don’t want to hand the application off directly to providers and force families to track down which options are even participating in the fund.

A user-friendly, one-stop application with automated eligibility checks will not only improve participation rates, it will also strengthen your marketing efforts by enabling you to lean into how simple and painless the process is. 

5. Engage Providers Early and Often

Provider participation is essential to the success of any subsidy program. CCDF-backed state assistance programs have long suffered from low participation rates due to overly burdensome administrative requirements and reimbursement rates that haven’t kept up with the true cost of care. Overcoming these barriers at the local and regional level requires a commitment on three fronts: 

• The system has to be set up in such a way that signing up for the program, reporting attendance, and notifying fund administrators of changes to enrollment status is all streamlined to the point of being a very light lift for overworked providers.
• Payments need to be timely, reliable, and the fund needs to supplement other sources in such a way that providers are not put in a position where they need to accept less revenue from families who are enrolled.
• Providers need clarity on all of these things up front before being asked to make a commitment. This can only happen with proactive outreach across multiple channels. Consider going boots on the ground and having fund representatives visit provider sites to explain the program and provide materials as needed, especially in communities with historically low participation rates.

6. Start Small, then Scale

“Too much, too fast” is one of the leading causes of failed implementations among child care initiatives. No amount of planning can fully prepare you for what happens when the fund goes live, and you will see scenarios you never anticipated. If your fund is offered statewide, start with one or two counties. If it’s a county-level program, start with one town or city. Even if you want to roll it all out at once, you can still be selective about marketing it, with the goal of stress testing your workflows and infrastructure before opening the floodgates. 

When determining where to start, consider factors such as:

• Which communities have been historically underserved?
• Where are the biggest supply-demand gaps?
• Where are there higher concentrations of participating providers?
• Which large local employers will have the most employees falling within income eligibility parameters?

Identify key milestones tied to time from launch, number of families enrolled, and/or amount of funding distributed. At each milestone, expand your outreach a little more until you’re 100% comfortable with your ability to handle an optimal volume of applications and participants. 

7. Get Targeted with Social Media

This might seem like an obvious choice, but with social media it’s very easy to get carried away trying to do too much. When considering which platforms to invest your time in, start with Meta. Historically, anything related to child care and family services seems to perform notably better on Facebook and Instagram than anywhere else. But even when you’re on the right platform, you’ll want to optimize what will likely be a very small paid advertising budget. 

Work with your advisory committee to narrow your defined audience for the fund. This might include age ranges, geographical locations, and specific workplaces. Meta’s advertising tools will enable you to be highly targeted, ensuring your message reaches the right people at the right time, and maximizing your return on investment. 

8. Leverage In-Kind Donations for Marketing Collateral

We’ve written in the past about the disconnect between the business community’s earnest desire to help with child care issues and a general lack of awareness of what efforts are already underway to do so. Even if business owners are unable to contribute to your fund directly, strong partnerships, potentially forged through chambers of commerce, can be a significant boon to your marketing efforts. 

In-kind donations are often easier to secure than cash, and many of these companies will have marketing departments with the resources and skillsets to expand your reach and help you build a strong library of content and collateral. Examples of projects these teams can support you with include: 

• Custom magnets featuring your URL, phone number, and/or QR code to distribute at various community centers
• Flyers and one-pagers promoting your fund
• Ad design for the aforementioned social media campaigns
• Website development and/or web design help to improve existing pages
• Case studies/success stories featuring employees of the business providing the in-kind donation

9. Meet Your Audience Where They Are

Parents and guardians of young children are most likely to be thinking about child care and finances on their way to and from work, when they’re out spending money on their families, and when they’re in public spaces with their children. Some options for consideration include: 

• Billboard ads at intersections and high-traffic areas
• Advertisements in housing or shelters near bus stops or train stops; direct marketing on busses, subways, and trains where applicable
• Posted flyers in grocery stores, parks, restaurants, laundromats, religious institutions, and any other location where families are likely to congregate
• Partnerships with local school systems to include information in monthly newsletters or flyers sent home with students

The first two will cost money, but everything else will just be a matter of having enough collateral on hand and having the volunteers in place to disseminate it. That collateral should be eye-catching and include very simple next steps for parents to learn more about the program. 

10. Ally With Other Social Service Agencies

A recurring challenge for social safety nets of all shapes and sizes has been the fact that they’re scattered across different administering organizations in such a way that eligible families and individuals end up with an excessive number of hoops to jump through. One of the easiest ways you can drive participation in a local subsidy is by partnering with your department of health and/or human services and other social services organizations to refer families who are most likely to be eligible based on participation in other, similar programs. 

The lift is small—the most important thing is that the people working on the front line with families understand what the subsidy is and who it’s for. Leave behind a stack of handouts with eligibility guidelines, high-level benefits, and links/QR codes directing families to your website and application. Return the favor by cross-promoting those agencies’ programs when working with your families. When you can develop that level of synergy, everybody wins. 

Building a Sustainable Program

The best part about most of these strategies is that they’re all achievable on very small administrative budgets. Many of them require a great deal of human connection and elbow grease, but it’s often not hard to find motivation when the result is a stronger community, more financially secure families, and children who are set up for the lifelong benefits of early education. 

Do you have a local subsidy success story to share? What’s missing from this list? Send us an email at childcarematters (at) bridgecare.com to let us know!