First Children's Finance

June 2025

Summer Inspiration for Those Who Inspire!

My family and I live in Minnesota, where summer is the season that makes the cold winters worth it. During those long January nights, the promises of summer keep me moving forward.

Child care entrepreneurs anticipate summer for lots of reasons. If you provide summer care, the return of school-age children makes you stretch your early childhood muscles to care for “big kids.” Providing summer care to school children might be a significant source of income for your business. Summer programming often means the difference between your business finishing 2025 with a profit or a loss. For you, summer may be a combination of working hard and playing hard.

Perhaps you’re the type of entrepreneur who loves long summer days and a slower pace. You might take advantage of lower enrollment (due to kindergarten transitions and family vacations) to focus on changing or improving your child care business. Now’s the perfect time to plan for fall, update your recruitment strategies, and improve

your business operations. Or perhaps you’ve planned some time when your program will be closed, allowing you to enjoy a well-deserved break.

Whether you’re daydreaming in the carefree glow of summer or making hay while the sun is shining, my best advice is to take advantage of everything the season offers. Plan days away from work and carve out time to dream about growing your business.

FCF staff is available to you this summer, and we’d love to help you design profitable summer enrollment strategies or think about what might be next for your business. If taking time away from your business seems undoable, we can help you design a better work-life balance without sacrificing business income.

Whatever your plans, I hope your summer brings you the best of what may be!

Heidi Hagel Braid

President and CEO

First Children's Finance

News

FCF Iowa Team Helps Child Care Center Move Past Pandemic Challenges

Coming out of the COVID pandemic in 2021, the Aquin Little Angels Early Childhood Center and Preschool in Cascade, Iowa, faced challenging times.

“COVID hit and bumps in the program became real,” says Advisory Board Member Lisa Merritt (right). "During COVID, closings of some classrooms were mandatory. Coming out of the pandemic, struggles due to staffing and enrollment that previously existed became more pronounced.”

Various options were on the table, and some of them – including selling portions of the center operations such as the school-age program, stripping the center down to à la carte options for care, or even contracting it out to a different company – weren’t acceptable to community members.

That’s when the center began working with the FCF Iowa team on strategic analysis, grant applications, policies and procedures, and community engagement.

Today, the center is through the bad bumps, and its balance sheet is on its way to standing on its own again for the first time post-COVID.

“Our community now sees that we are going to be OK. We got through this and want to keep the positivity that we have built.”

Read the Full Cascade (IA) Story!

Nearly 80 Oregon Child Care Entrepreneurs Participate in 'Incredibly Helpful' Business Leadership Cohorts

First Children’s Finance offered Business Leadership Cohorts (BLCs) in Oregon to Certified Family, Registered Family, and Certified Child Care Centers during the spring of 2025. Through an application process, FCF offered spots in the cohorts to nearly 80 child care entrepreneurs. Five cohorts were offered, including one in Spanish.

21 Counties Represented
Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Grant, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Malheur, Morrow, Multnomah, Tillamook, Umatilla, Union, Washington

BLCs provide center directors and family child care owners the opportunity to dive into the business aspects of their child care programs. Participants learn about the child care business model, the importance of managing enrollment, and developing policies and procedures to improve financial performance. Each participant works with an FCF business development consultant to complete a business financial analysis and to create strategies to enhance performance. Participants regularly report making significant changes to their business that result in profitability.

“It helped me understand how a business operates and how to manage it in the best way. It also complemented areas where I had little knowledge, and above all, the financial support to improve my materials was incredibly helpful.”

FCF is looking forward to continuing to offer cohorts across Oregon, enabling additional child care entrepreneurs to dive deep into the operations of their programs.

Since the first cohorts wrapped up in April 2025, programs are reporting increases in enrollment, hiring additional staff, and exploring ways to increase wages. FCF looks forward to hearing more positive outcomes and the impact of the BLC experience as participants implement the takeaways from the sessions.

In addition to BLCs, FCF offered trainings throughout the year to child care program leadership. These trainings covered program leadership, finances, staffing, and marketing. More than 560 participants completed 12 trainings since June 2024! Look for our upcoming training and cohort information on our website.

Welcome, Abigail Sylvester,

A Bold Leader for FCF's Programs!

First Children’s Finance is thrilled to announce that it has hired Abigail Sylvester as its new Chief Program Officer. A champion for child care entrepreneurs and early education systems, Abigail brings a wealth of experience that perfectly aligns with our mission to build strong, sustainable child care systems nationwide. She officially stepped into the role in early May 2025.

Abigail joins us after 13 years at Start Early, a national early childhood education nonprofit based in Chicago. Her background spans policy and systems building, as well as developing and scaling products and services for the early learning and care workforce in partnership with early childhood professionals, public sector leaders, advocates, and philanthropy.

“I’m thrilled to join First Children’s Finance and use my skills and experience to grow the supply and sustainability of excellent childcare, particularly in this moment in time,” Abigail says. “I’m passionate about supporting and uplifting child care entrepreneurs and leaders as they play such a critical role in our economy and in the lives of children and families.”

As Chief Program Officer at FCF, Abigail will lead two core areas of work: Program Development & Innovation and Policy & Systems.

Program Development: Creating and improving the innovation of our programs and services; professional development and supporting our staff, ensuring we continue to deliver measurable impact.
Policy and Systems: Driving national voice in early childhood systems, leading public-sector consulting efforts, and shaping stronger infrastructure for care.

Abigail earned a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

FCF Cost Modeling Informs Increased Investment in Infant

and Toddler Care in Vermont!

In late 2024, the FCF National Systems team partnered with the Child Development Division (CDD) of the Vermont Department for Children and Families to create an annual update of Vermont’s child care cost model. This work helped inform the Vermont Legislature as it increased subsidy rates for infant and toddler care!

Child care cost models explore the actual costs that child care businesses experience when caring for children. Understanding the true cost of providing child care is critical to developing a child care system that meets the needs of children, families, and providers.

FCF engaged with CDD and other partners in Vermont to understand their needs and goals, as well as previous uses of cost modeling in Vermont. The FCF National Systems Team then updated Vermont’s cost models to reflect inflation and recent policy changes, including impacts of Act 76, a 2023 Vermont law that made significant investments in the state’s child care system. These updates were informed by detailed business data collected by the FCF Vermont team, as well as their state of child care business survey.

FCF also created two sets of cost models: one that reflected estimated current costs that child care businesses experienced and another that reflected an aspirational state with aspirational wages and benefits for the ECE workforce.

FCF built on its cost modeling skills and knowledge of child care business operations to produce a report that highlighted key findings and considerations for CDD when using cost modeling data to set child care subsidy rates.

CDD shared that the report was clear and easy to understand. One of the key findings of the cost modeling report was a gap between current state subsidy rates and the cost of care for infants and toddlers. This reflected longstanding market dynamics and the impact of setting subsidy rates based on the price, rather than cost, of care.

CDD presented this data to the Vermont legislature, which responded by increasing subsidy rates for infant and toddler care. This is an important investment to support access to care for Vermont families with infants and toddlers and the sustainability of Vermont child care businesses!

FCF will continue to partner with Vermont to create another update to the state’s cost model in January 2026.

To learn more about the services that can be provided to state government systems, contact our National Systems and Consulting teams at InfoNational@firstchildrensfinance.org.

Michigan Child Care Entrepreneur Overcomes

Challenges and Succeeds!

Jesenia Amoros-Hernandez wanted to open a new child care center in Wyoming, MI, but the path was not straightforward. Local zoning regulations and state plan review were obstacles, but ones that she found a way to overcome.

With the help of both FCF’s Michigan team and the Loan Fund, she was able to navigate the challenges and open Little Scholars II Daycare Center in January 2025. Just four months after opening, the center is nearly at its 41-child capacity!

“It was difficult, but I always had hope. I love everything about child care. I wouldn’t do anything else.”

Read About Jesenia's Success with Little Scholars II Daycare!

Vermont Pilot Program Plots Next Steps to Universally Affordable Child Care

In response to the historic 2023 public investment in Vermont’s child care system, First Children’s Finance Vermont – in partnership with the Bainum Family Foundation – has launched a pilot program designed to fill critical gaps in access to the Child Care Financial Assistance Program (CCFAP).

Recent policy changes in Vermont have expanded childcare affordability by increasing reimbursement rates and expanding income eligibility. Participation in CCFAP has increased by more than 25% in the past year (see chart below). Not all families, however, benefit from the changes. Some families exceed the income threshold despite the cost of child care being a high percentage of their income. Other families cannot demonstrate a service need despite having income eligibility.

The Universal Access Scholarship Pilot Program is made possible by funding from the Bainum Family Foundation’s WeVision EarlyEd Initiative. The scholarships will support up to 120 families enrolled in a participating child care program and denied eligibility for CCFAP.

Eligible families will receive a $1,000 scholarship to help offset the cost of care for one year. Participating child care programs will promote the scholarships to enrolled families, track eligibility and enrollment, and provide input to the pilot evaluation. FCF is currently seeking 20 Vermont child care programs to participate in this pilot. These programs will be selected based on geographic diversity, the number of expected eligible families, and demonstrated ability to administer the program effectively.

This pilot program will ease affordability for participating families in the short term and help inform what is needed to achieve universal, affordable access. Through this data-driven approach, FCF VT and its VT partners, Let’s Grow Kids (LGK) and the Child Development Division (CDD), hope to inform Vermont’s path to universally accessible child care.

Interested child care programs were invited to participate beginning May 2025, and families will be enrolled August-September 2025. If you would like to learn more, contact FCF Vermont Director Erin Roche.