Growing the ECD Funder Community Insights from Silicon Valley - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Growing the ECD Funder Community Insights from Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Promise Venture Studio Funder Research

Welcome! Goals: Reflect on field research to initiate a collaborative discussion about ● how to collectively grow the community of funders in ECD Norms: Start and end on time ● Growth mindset, safe space ● Engagement and interaction ● Video enabled all the time, audio on mute when you’re not talking ○ Expect some ‘warm’ calling to maximize diverse perspectives ○ Use Zoom chat to ask questions anytime ○

Who’s Who in the Zoom Room 1 Your name 2 Your organization’s name Your motivations and aspirations for 3 funding in ECD (in 30 seconds)

The investment mismatch

The investment mismatch - public funding

The investment mismatch - philanthropic funding

Our collective problem statement... “How do we (current ECD funders) grow and build the capacity of the ECD funder community?”

Executive Summary Promise Venture Studio and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s Center for Early Learning conducted research to inform their shared objectives of recruiting more engaged Early Childhood Development (ECD) funders, investors, and philanthropists nationally and locally. Surveys and qualitative interviews with 150+ funders led to three main insights: Common key messages are most influential in engaging potential ECD ● funders Funders experience similar challenges investing in the ECD field and share a ● vision of opportunities to overcome those obstacles Funders express most acute needs for support at the start and end of the ● funding cycle

Together, SVCF CEL and Promise surveyed the field of ECD funders to gain insight and take action 1 2 3 PHASE 1: PHASE 2: PHASE 3: MESSAGING AND SUPPORT TAKING MOTIVATIONS RESEARCH ACTION RESEARCH Leveraging the insights Inspired by SVCF, Promise from their research, SVCF SVCF conducted an online conducted an online and Promise have come survey and telephone survey and qualitative together to create interviews to identify group design sessions resources and support motivations and what focused on funder support programs for new and messaging is most needs, challenges, and existing funders in ECD. persuasive to prospective opportunities. and current ECD funders.

Responding funders represent a diversity of foundation types and funding geographies Foundation Types Geographic Funding Focus Family Foundations 44% Single city or county 25% Community Foundations 23% Multi-city or county 19% Independent Foundations 10% Single state 17% Corporate Foundations 4% National 16% Other 19% Multi-state 12% International 10% * N=88, these demographics are from the second phase of research only

Funders want to maintain and increase deep levels of engagement in early childhood Current engagement in ECD: Future engagement in ECD: want to 18% 59% 50% increase their Moderate Deep funding want to 46% maintain their funding 17% Slight want to 3% 5% decrease their None funding

Established funders have diverse priorities and impact targets Topics of greatest interest to funders Categories of funders’ current investments ● Diversity, equity, and inclusion (85%) Family/Parent 28% Support ● Social emotional learning (83%) 26% Education ● Child care supply and quality (80%) ● Intergenerational anti-poverty/economic Child 25% mobility (78%) Development ● Ages 3-5 (78%) 23% Advocacy ● Early language/literacy (77%) 20% Childcare ● Early adversity/resilience (77%) ● Ages 0-2 (76%) * See a complete list of interest areas surveyed in the appendix

Three consistent messages stood out as most influential in attracting current ECD funders Top Messages that Attracted Current ECD Funders 1 Research proves that early childhood investments improve long-term educational outcomes for children 2 Investing in early childhood improves equity and access for underserved populations 3 The return on investment in early childhood is very high compared to other social investments

Once established, funders are driven by four key motivations Top Motivations for Established Funders 1 3 Brain Science. The current research Overlap with other causes. ECD as a on brain science was compelling and way to address or tackle other critical to their decision-making. pressing issues, such as academic achievement or community health. 2 4 Social justice. ECD as a way to Innovation opportunities. The lack protect some of the most vulnerable of early childhood systems and and voiceless in our society. attention to the field provide many opportunities for innovation

Let’s discuss! What messages and ● motivations from our research resonate with your experience as an investor in ECD? What messages and ● motivations (do or don’t) resonate with other funders you’ve engaged about ECD?

Funders identified three broad themes of challenges and opportunities to overcome them 1 We need to better make the case for ECD 2 Complexity & fragmentation make opportunities opaque 3 Local context matters & makes scaling difficult *The bullet points on the following 3 slides are directly from research participants.

We need to better make the case for ECD 1 Themes Challenges Opportunities ● New donors experience ● Better marketing: connect ROI, We need to information overload and are stories, compelling research into better make the often overwhelmed with the well crafted campaigns. case for ECD complexity of the issues. ● Build on early momentum for ECD in ● General public has limited social innovation circles. understanding of the case for ECD & Complexity & ● Connect ECD to other problems fragmentation evidence base. with traction in adjacent fields, make opportunities ● It’s hard to track outcomes & impact, e.g. immigration, workforce, DEI. opaque especially long term. ● Collective Impact Model is effective: ● Communication and comparison of built case w/ memorable stats & program-level impact is difficult and stories paired w/ solutions. Local context there are often unrealistic matters & makes expectations of outcomes. scaling difficult

Complexity & fragmentation make opportunities opaque 2 Themes Challenges Opportunities ● Early childhood issues are ● Create platform to highlight most We need to integrated within systemic promising ventures and better make the challenges and require long-term organizations across priority case for ECD commitment. challenges and opportunities. ● Little uniformity or structure in the ● Align and connect funders across Complexity & ECD system makes it harder to areas on shared thematic fragmentation understand and measure. interests. make ● Funders are reluctant to work ● Encourage orgs working on the same opportunities through unfamiliar program delivery issue to collaborate more frequently opaque channels (e.g. social services). on best practices. ● Focus on individual investment Local context strategies and program areas makes matters & makes it hard to achieve pooled impact. scaling difficult

Local context matters & makes scaling difficult 3 Themes Challenges Opportunities ● Scaling with fidelity requires ● Better map and understand local We need to working in local contexts and systems at play. better make the designing programs for scale from case for ECD ● Help defining gap areas and how the start. to either attract new innovations ● Finding the right ideas and or help existing players to Complexity & connecting to community strengths. innovate. fragmentation ● If there aren't existing solutions ● Help “selling” programs to local make locally, we have to first "sell" nonprofits in position to offer them opportunities programs to grantees. They have to to the community. opaque do the heavy lifting, and some aren't conscious of the need or feel unable Local context to tackle new programing. matters & makes scaling difficult

Let’s discuss! Which of these three ● challenges and opportunities identified through our research resonate most with your experience in ECD? What challenges or ● opportunities are missing?

Funders are asking for a variety of supports across the funding cycle When support is needed Type of support preferred Topical Investment Primers (70%) ● Attract Sourcing of ventures (57%) Index of Fundable Ventures (63%) ● ● Establish Diligence (44%) Virtual & In- Person ‘Demo Days’ (75%) ● ● Commitment Execution of investments (33%) 1:1 Venture Intros & Matchmaking ● ● (51%) Portfolio Support (43%) Local Funder Meetups ● ● Grow Impact Evaluation (60%) (75%) ● Commitment Partner with Others (73%) Virtual Workshops (82%) ● ●