Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/journeys-in-leadership-honoring-home-based-child-care/5025188/
“Seven million children under age five are in home-based child care settings,” explained Natalie Renew, the new director of Home Grown, a recently formed collaborative that will increase access to and quality of home-based child care for one million children. “I am thrilled about this opportunity to recognize, honor and lift up the value of this important segment of the early childhood field.”
I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Natalie about this exciting initiative, a coming together of ten funders committed to doing something significant to improve the life circumstances of the nation’s most vulnerable children. She told me that the funding group—Buffet Early Childhood Fund, Gary Community Investments, Heinz Endowment, Heising-Simons Foundation, Klingenstein Philanthropies, MAEVA Social Capital, Merage Foundation, Omidyar Network, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative—is committed to investing in dedicated providers to build quality practices. Home Grown believes that “ensuring all families have access to appropriate, affordable, and high-quality care for their young children is an issue that cuts across many systemic goals—education, economic opportunity, mobility from poverty, and increasing equity of opportunity.”
Natalie is no stranger to big ideas. Her career has spanned the gamut of professional opportunities, all ...