Tools to Support Initiatives for Financing Early Childhood Education

Creating Local Dedicated Funding Streams for Kids: A Guide to Planning a Local Initiative to Fund Services for Children, Youth and their Families
Funding the Next Generation has published a guide to creating local sustainable funding for children through ballot measures. This how-to guide provides information on topics such as building a children’s budget to developing the best revenue strategy to getting on the ballot.

Innovative Financing to Expand Programming and Services So Children Can Thrive
This policy brief shines light on ten innovative methods to finance services for children and youth. Some of these methods have been successfully implemented by communities while others are strategies that should be considered as we look to use all the tools available to prepare America’s youth for the future.

Funding our Future: Generating State and Local Tax Revenue for Quality Early Care and Education
A new report released by the BUILD Initiative provides early childhood leaders with funding strategies for increasing the revenue from state and local sources that can be directed to high-quality early care and education.

Innovative Financing to Expand Services so Children Can Thrive
The Children’s Fund Project and the Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education release a policy brief that highlights ten innovative methods to finance services for children and youth. Some of these methods have been successfully implemented by communities while others are strategies to be considered.

Ten Questions Local Policymakers Should Ask About Expanding Access to Preschool
A report from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) summarizes key findings from a study looking at local preschool initiatives in 10 cities across the U.S. The report identifies ten questions, which any city or community should consider when working to expand access to and improve the quality of preschool provided in their communities.

School Readiness Tax Credits Benefit Louisiana Families and Communities
A new report by the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children shows how Louisiana’s School Readiness Tax Credits stand out as a national model. Through the tax credits, Louisiana is supporting a broad network of child care providers that create jobs and earnings in their local economies, as well as providing critical services for children. For every dollar spent in the Louisiana early care and education sector, there is a $1.78 return into the local economy. This tax credit program is one of the case studies in this toolkit.

Community Innovation Asset Map
InnovateNC, a cross-city learning collaborative, has created an Innovation Asset Map.  It’s a turnkey tool for communities of all sizes to enhance their innovation capability through the development of a roadmap to grow their innovation economy. The tool provides worksheets for communities to catalogue their current assets and consider how they can build enabling environments to foster innovation as well as create community and economic development policies that support innovation. The Innovation Asset map can be downloaded here.

Mecklenburg County, NC Releases Action Plan for Early Childhood Education
The Mecklenburg County Manager created an Early Childhood Executive Committee that released a report in September of 2017 including a recommended five point plan to begin to significantly expand access to early learning programs over a six year period.

Are Employer Child Care Tax Credits Effective?
A 2018 report by the National Women’s Law Center highlights how employer tax credits for childcare are underutilized and being abandoned by several states as they are ineffective at incentivizing business to invest in their employees’ child care needs. Many companies are ineligible and others lack the federal tax liability to use tax credits.

Special Taxing Districts

Interested in special taxing districts to fund early learning programs? This fact sheet from the Children’s Funding Project explains how state-enabling legislation in Florida, Colorado and Oregon allow for special taxing districts and the local initiatives that have resulted.