Massachusetts families deserve affordable and convenient child care. That's why in 2022, the State Treasurer's Office of Economic Empowerment and Citizens co-developed the Childcare Startup Grant in Lynn and Springfield, two cities considered to be childcare deserts. This one-year pilot initiative provided funding for individuals to pursue their dreams of owning a business and nurturing future generations. Hi there. I'm Deb Goldberg, the Massachusetts State Treasurer and Receiver General. And my mission, ever since I came into office, was to create economic stability and economic opportunity for everyone across Massachusetts. Sadly, what we saw from the pandemic is so many people were seriously impacted, but in particular, women. And one of the key problems for women was access to child care, not just affordable child care, but with the shutdown, all child care. So coming back from that, we decided to work with partners and Lisa Murray and Citizens stepped up and helped us create a grant program, a great grant program in order to train and support women, in particular in Lynn and Springfield, known child care deserts. And so consequently, we were able to grant up to $4,500 for training and business development skills in order to support these women that not only helped them in creating a business, but create affordable child care for the other women and families in their neighborhoods. It's been a wonderful opportunity and it is our way of trying to make a difference. Grantees not only received capital to get their facilities up and running, but they also completed family child care workshops to learn the ins and outs of being a business owner. A key focus of this grant was to also increase small business skills for our grantees. Through our research, we found that child care providers don't often think of themselves as business owners despite managing their own child care operations. Business management skills are typically not prioritized in the early childhood education field, leading many child care providers to try to learn those skills by themselves. That's why grantees received business training from United Way of Mass Bay and Merrimack Valley Shared Services. Citizens and OEE encourage anyone interested in operating a family child care center to use our tools to help you get started. We look forward to the continued success of our grantees, and we hope other organizations follow our lead by supporting expanded access to child care in Massachusetts. Banks, government agencies and other groups can use the Incubator Guide developed by Citizens and the Office of Economic Empowerment to research ways to offer their own grants. Supporting FCCs is an urgent task, and we hope you join us in ensuring equal access to affordable child care. Visit: Mass.gov/ChildCareStartupResources to find resources and tools to help support family child care businesses in Massachusetts.
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