Why ECE Facilities?

The indoor and outdoor environments children spend their time growing and learning are often referred to as the “third teacher.” Thoughtfully designed, developmentally appropriate, flexible spaces are important components of high quality early learning settings.

In California, nearly 46% or 1.2 million children under the age of 6 have regular child care arrangements outside the home. This does not account for families in search of affordable or longer term care that want it.

However, 60% of California’s children live in a child care desert and child care programs operating on thing margins often lack the funds and support to pursue renovations and expansions.

Our Solution

Build Up California is an initiative of the Low Income Investment Fund  dedicated to increasing the supply of high quality child care facilities to address both the shortage of available spaces and the lack of funding for necessary repairs and renovations .

 We consider early care and education facilities to be a vital part of our state’s physical infrastructure and essential to an equitable economy. We pursue these goals through the following activities:

• Advocacy - legislative advocacy with the California State Legislature to continue funding the Infrastructure Grant Program (IGP) & participate in the statewide ECE Coalition & providing support for local ECE facilities policy initiatives

• Capacity Building - providing local leaders with the education and tools necessary to advance and advocate for ECE facilities funding in their own communities

• Policy Research - performing local and state analysis on land use policies, authoring research briefs and resources, & gathering  and disseminating ECE facilities best practices resources.