All Our Kin

All Our Kin trains, supports, and sustains family child care professionals, the vast majority of whom are women of color, as early childhood educators and business owners. We increase child care supply, transform child care quality, empower women as entrepreneurs, and improve early childhood outcomes.

All Our Kin takes a three-pronged approach: 

Direct Service: Our Family Child Care Networks in Connecticut and New York support educators throughout their professional journeys, building their capacity as early childhood professionals and small business owners. Beginning with Tool Kit Licensing, we provide resources and mentorship during the licensure process. Upon licensure, educators have access to educational and business coaching, workshops and trainings on child development and business best practices, and a community of peers. 

Technical Assistance: Taking best practices and content developed over two decades as a direct service practitioner, All Our Kin began to adapt and scale our solution across the country. We now train partners including other nonprofits, state and local governments, and Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, in the All Our Kin model. Through in-depth technical assistance offerings, we are working to solve the child care crisis in the U.S. by building family child care quality, availability, and sustainability. 

Movement-Building: Through our movement-building and narrative change efforts, we are working to mobilize our relationships with partners into a coalition, centering care and the work of women of color at the nexus of change. Examples include earned media, policy advising, and aligning groups of stakeholders on policy priorities. 

Family child care, or home-based child care, is the most prevalent child care arrangement in the U.S. Nearly 97% of child care settings are homes and 27.5% are family child care programs. Providing care for small groups of children, family child care educators play a crucial role in transforming opportunities for children who need those opportunities the most - infants, toddlers, children of color, and children from low-income communities. They also offer families benefits including: accessibility, as programs tend to be located in families’ neighborhoods; flexibility, as many programs care for children whose parents work nontraditional hours; and culturally responsive care, as many educators share families’ cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds. 

Despite the critical role family child care plays, it is systematically overlooked and devalued . Consequently, family child care educators - who are predominantly women of color earning below-median wages -  often lack access to the resources, training, and support necessary to run high-quality, sustainable businesses. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing fissures in this critical sector, putting enormous strain on an already under-funded and under-supported field. 

At All Our Kin, we recognize family child care’s potential to transform outcomes for educators, children, and families. At the nexus of child and workforce development, we support educators at every stage of their development, resulting in a triple win: family child care educators grow their capacity as educators and small business owners; parents enter and remain in the workforce; and children receive a high-quality early education.

Our solution supports both working parents, and BIPOC- and women-owned child care businesses caring for the children of those parents. Without adequate, accessible child care and career pathways for the women providing that care, the U.S. will not be able to recover from the pandemic, economically or otherwise. All Our Kin is poised to expand our technical assistance programming at significant scale. The Inspire Awards would provide All Our Kin with the necessary growth capital to scale our work, while simultaneously working to build the sustainability of our programming through earned revenue streams and fee-for-service.

In particular, All Our Kin plans to scale the Network Development program of our technical assistance initiative, wherein partners participate in a 10-month engagement with All Our Kin staff on how to operate and sustain values-driven, comprehensive staffed family child care networks. We plan to train key stakeholders in the delivery of our Tool Kit Licensing Program, which supports family child care educators at every stage of the multifaceted state licensing process, enabling educators to establish and start-up their child care businesses. Through enhancing the capacity of key stakeholders in the delivery of this programming, we will eliminate barriers to the complex licensure process that family child care educators currently face; support the creation of new family child care programs; increase the availability of high-quality child care; and support BIPOC and female entrepreneurs in starting and sustaining their child care businesses..

All Our Kin’s work is rooted in a deep commitment to educational, racial, and gender equity with a strong focus on strengthening the businesses of women of color and improving outcomes for children. 

As a practitioner, All Our Kin serves approximately 1,000 family child care educators, who in turn care for over 6,000 children, through direct service sites in Connecticut and New York City, and, as a trainer, another 5,000 educators, who in turn care for approximately 40,000 children, through our technical assistance initiatives across the U.S. 

The vast majority of educators who engage with us are women of color in under-resourced communities and the vast majority of those in their care are children of color from neighborhoods with high poverty rates:

• Nearly nine in ten educators are women, and approximately: 14% identify as Black, African-American, Afro-Caribbean, African, or Afro-Latinx; 64% as Hispanic or Latinx; 4% as white; 2% as multi-racial; and 1% as Asian. The remaining educators chose not to disclose race/ethnicity data.

• Approximately 80% of educators from whom All Our Kin has received income data fall within the low- to moderate-income range when compared to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s income limits and median income levels. 

• Among educators who have achieved family child care licensure with the support of our Tool Kit Licensing Program, the average annual income is $25,444. 

Within one year of completing All Our Kin’s Tool Kit Licensing or Business Coaching Programs, the majority of educators increase earnings by $5,000 or more. After two years, earnings increase an average of $10,000 per year. All Our Kin educators also score, on average, over 50 percent higher on research-based measures of quality than non-All Our Kin providers.

All Our Kin operates direct service sites throughout the state of Connecticut and in New York City. Our technical assistance initiative has been implemented in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Washington, DC, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas. 

Our network development strand of our technical assistance work is currently operating in Tennessee and Texas, and the licensing strand of our technical assistance work has been piloted in Nebraska. 

Part of our growth plan is to continue to expand in and prioritize the Truist Foundation’s target geographies, codifying our approach and process and refining how to train others in a way that’s meaningful for their state context. 

All Our Kin’s work both launches and sustains small businesses. The majority of educators who engage with us or our technical assistance partners are already doing the critical work of caring for children, and first come to us seeking training and support as they navigate the multifaceted and often complex state licensing process. Licensure indicates that educators are providing healthy and safe care and can increase the level of funding educators receive through child care subsidy programs and/or allow educators to increase their pricing and market on the basis of quality. 

Once licensed, All Our Kin offers - and builds the capacity of others to offer - a menu of programmatic offerings designed to enhance and sustain educators’ small businesses, including one-on-one coaching, workshops, and a proprietary 30 hour Business Series that is designed specifically to support family child care educators in strengthening the efficacy and sustainability of their businesses. 

All Our Kin’s theory of change focuses on family child care’s enormous potential to transform opportunities for the women of color who work as family child care educators and the children and families in their care. We recognize that when family child care educators receive the high-quality resources, training, mentorship, and support they deserve, they are able to build sustainable small businesses that support themselves and their families, while also offering high-quality early care and education, empowering children and families to succeed.

While child care settings overall are well positioned to serve as loci of change for social and economic mobility, family child care programs are especially well suited to do so. This is because family child care programs reach our country’s most overburdened, under-resourced children and families, who face the greatest barriers to success and who stand to benefit most from access to high-quality early care and education. In fact, according to Child Care Aware of America, “although early education benefits all children, the greatest benefits accrue to children from low-income families.”

Family child care programs are also uniquely well suited to meet the child care needs of today’s working families. This is because family child care programs: 1) are located in families’ neighborhoods and often offer early morning, evening, and/or weekend hours, giving families greater flexibility and making them more accessible; 2) provide individualized care in warm,  family-like settings for mixed age groups; 3) often align with families’ cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds; and 4) serve as trusted local sources of knowledge and support, as providers are well positioned to refer families to community resources and services, and often intimately understand the challenges families face because they too have experienced these challenges.

Through our technical assistance work, All Our Kin seeks to create national and system-wide change wherein key stakeholders, including state and local governments and other nonprofits, have increased awareness of and support for family child care and a stronger capacity to develop supportive networks and policies.

All Our Kin’s technical assistance initiative currently reaches 5,055 family child care businesses. We plan to reach 9,000 businesses in one year and 20,000 in five years. Our network development strand of our technical assistance offerings, specifically, reaches approximately 2,000 family child care businesses currently and will reach approximately 4,000 in one year and 10,000 in five years. 

Through our technical assistance initiative, we train system-level practitioners who serve family child care educators and their businesses in All Our Kin’s model and best practices. These can include state Departments of Education, local government officials, other nonprofits, provider-led associations, and Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies. The goal of our technical assistance work is to leverage and build on existing infrastructure and relationships in order to enhance participants’ capacity to support family child care businesses and, in turn, deepen educators’ impact on children’s outcomes. We prioritize participation among groups who reach family child care educators that face the greatest hurdles to establishing high-quality, sustainable programs. In addition, we assess technical assistance applicants’ readiness to engage fully in our offerings and, in turn, strengthen their effect on educators, children, and families most significantly. 

All Our Kin’s technical assistance initiative is itself designed to create community and expand place-based solutions. We recognize that the success of All Our Kin is our high-touch relationship-oriented model. Rather than replicating All Our Kin across the country, we see our technical assistance as a strategy to build the local capacity of organizations and agencies who already hold deep and authentic community relationships. 

Additionally, at All Our Kin, we engage with family child care educators as partners and leaders, and we continuously strive to ensure their knowledge and experiences inform our model and decision-making. We work to accomplish this through the following activities:

• Regularly surveying educators who participate in our programming in order to invite feedback on their levels of satisfaction, the extent to which offerings provide applicable strategies for their programs, desired topics for future offerings, and more.
• Holding educator panel discussions, where panelists share insights, learnings, and skills with peers in the All Our Kin community. We began these last year, with the goal of creating space for educators to exchange COVID-related learnings, preserving connections within the community during the pandemic, and supporting educators in strengthening their presentation skills.
• Launching a Provider Ambassador Program and Provider Steering Council this year. The Provider Ambassador Program includes family child care educators from each All Our Kin direct service site, who play a role in representing All Our Kin to legislators, the media, partners, and funders. The program includes an orientation and approximately 3-4 speaking opportunities per ambassador per year. The Provider Steering Council will include two representatives from each All Our Kin site and will provide oversight and monitor progress on our policy and advocacy work. Educators interested in joining the Ambassador Program or Steering Council submitted applications earlier this year and those selected will receive a stipend.
• Ensuring educator representation on our Board of Directors and, in turn, educator engagement in decision making at the highest levels of the organization.

Our success in building trusting, strong community relationships is rooted in the characteristics of: 

1. Articulated vision for what our work seeks to accomplish in partnership with educators. 

2. Knowledgeable and dedicated staff who reflect the community.

3. Professional learning opportunities are offered in group sessions, one-on-one in-home coaching, and with peer networking with multiple points of entry and equitable access.

4. Guiding principles that are integrated into all aspects of the work and reflect a commitment to equity, put relationships first, and center educator voice. 

Our outreach and communication methods are responsive and flexible, meeting partners where they are. Many new partners come to All Our Kin via word of mouth and contact us directly or via our website. From there, we conduct video calls, exchange emails, and provide materials electronically. Post-pandemic, we anticipate beginning to travel to meet partners in person once again. We offer support in both Spanish and English. 

Across groups supporting family child care businesses in raising the quality, availability, and/or  sustainability of family child care programs, All Our Kin has the strongest, most robust data on the impact of our programming. We track key outcomes across the organization, at individual direct service sites, and across our technical assistance partnerships. 

Our short-term (one year) outcomes are focused on collecting detailed feedback from our technical assistance partners, to develop a deep understanding of their experience as participants in this work. We anticipate participants will:

• Demonstrate increased capacity to develop supportive family child care networks and support educators through the licensing process

• Increase public awareness and support of family child care 

• Implement training and coaching for family child care educators using All Our Kin’s model

• Increase knowledge about family child care practices, child development, and adult learning. 

Our five-year outcomes are focused on the impact of All Our Kin’s model on achieving educator, family, and system-level results. We will achieve these outcomes through dramatic scale over the course of our five-year strategic growth plan (2022-2026). Long-term outcomes include:

• Reach 20,000 educators and 150,000+ children 

• Dramatically increase in the number of educators who achieve licensure, thereby increasing the number of child care spaces available and families able to access reliable child care

• Increased educator access to high-quality professional development opportunities 

• Educators build capacity in business ownership and entrepreneurship, leading to increased sustainability and income

• Educators implement improved child development practices, resulting in improved outcomes for children

All Our Kin was founded in 1999 in a housing development in New Haven, Connecticut with two staff members, six mothers, six children, and one core belief: all children deserve access to high-quality early learning experiences. All Our Kin’s senior leadership team brings diverse experiences and expertise to our work, and a deep commitment to building an equitable child care system. Co-Founder and CEO, Jessica Sager, graduated from Yale Law School and leads our work transforming systems and policy. Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Janna Wagner, is an experienced educator (Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education) with a passion for the rights of women and children. President, Erica Phillips, has a strong background in business and education (M.B.A./Ed.M. from Stanford University) and is driven by a commitment to improving the businesses of women of color. CFOO Akash Mangar is an accomplished financial leader with 20+ years of nonprofit experience. Recently, Jessica was named to Care 100, a group of 100 leaders recognized as the most influential people in care. Janna was recently awarded the Peter Jennings Award for Civic Leadership, given to a Teach for America alum whose work has led to significant progress toward educational equity. Erica was recently selected to participate in the National Black Child Development Policy Fellowship cohort. 

In addition to deeply skilled leadership, our technical assistance team is composed of ten highly qualified practitioners, trainers, and coaches who have partnered directly with educators to inform their skills and practice.

All Our Kin is poised to expand our technical assistance initiative at significant scale: there are unprecedented levels of demand for our offerings; we have a growing and compelling suite of data highlighting the initiative’s effectiveness; and we have brought on a business development consulting team to help us develop a marketing and pricing strategy for our technical assistance offerings, with the goal of decreasing the initiative’s reliance on national philanthropy over time. We are excited about being part of a peer network during this critical time in our organizational growth and sharing learnings, strategies, and support with other thought leaders in the field. 

Particularly, access to the MIT Solve network of business development and experts in scaling solutions nationally would add tremendous value to All Our Kin’s solution. We have expertise, content, and deep knowledge and lived experience. We need support to amplify those assets at significant scale.  

All Our Kin would be delighted to partner with educator-led organizations, nonprofits, Child Care Resource and Referral agencies, and local and state governments, particularly in the Truist Foundation priority geographies. 

Additionally, we would welcome marketing and sales support as we scale our solution to new markets and geographies.