you and this is a very important issue and very interesting organization that you're heading for first tell us a little bit about yourself sure i grew up in vermont little town called newberry i went to oxford high school and actually  got my first taste of the political policy world as a high school student i was the student member on the state board of education appointed by governor dean so that was very interesting to see how important it is to have internships opportunities like that as a young person to really see the world in your place and in what you might be able to contribute i went out of state for college and then i ended up working in washington d c for a couple years  still thinking about politics trying to have the biggest impact i could as a younger person and up working on the first obama presidential campaign and after he was elected i was really a little bit disenfranchised by the lack of civil discourse and work happening productive work out between down of the federal government so i actually ran home as fast as i could to really make a difference so that's i was so pleased to have a place like vermont to come back to and really be able to to work on something that i really feel passionately about i worked in the governor's office under governor shumlin for a few years and did a lot of policy work mostly ended up turning into an education work as education rose to the top as one of these key fundamental aspects of our state that we need to focus on and i really learned a lot in that role and then transitioned over to run the permanent fund about two and half years ago very well tell us about the forum what exactly who understands very interesting great so the permanent fund for months children it was founded in the year two thousand by some business men and women who decided they wanted to have the greatest possible impact on the future of vermont a state that they loved and so they ended up focusing on early childhood education and not everybody makes that leap right off the bat so why if you care deeply about the sustainable future for the state is early child education your single focus and it really comes down to this logic model of what we know about the science and the research the brain science shows you that eighty percent of a child's brain and the foundation of sort of their future success and resiliency against chronic disease or addictive behaviors executive function the ability to sort of manage   motions and hands complex situations is really fully in place by age three that's eighty percent of the foundation and ninety percent of the foundation by age five so if these are the most crucial years in a child in family's life where are kids in vermont and that's a question that's also true for the whole country and the truth is you know there have been many changes we don't make any statement whether it makes sense to be in the workforce or not we just went to the data and seven out of ten kids in vermont under six have all of a little caretakers or parents in the workforce which means they're just no longer at home during these crucial years for the most part and so we'll get into this in a little bit later i think but we started looking then at well ok if they're not home where are they and we saw that we almost had a crisis level of the amount of childcare regulated childcare that was available to this population in need and then how much of that was actually affordable for families and how much of that was high quality and so our mission of high quality affordable childcare for all who need it in vermont by two thousand and twenty five came from that logic model of we really want to have a thriving future for our state of vermont and here's a linchpin issue sort of a root cause  issue so just a little bit more about the history because it is sort of interesting it has been in our eighteen years we are a supporting organization of the vermont community foundation so they we are with them they're our back office and we partner with them on many things and then the founder sort of started by saying let's just pool sort of a lots of different folks that are interested in early childhood who have done film from pick work in early childhood and target sort of a policy issue that we think we really move the needle on so they started experimenting on how to make the biggest impact using philanthropy in early childhood education and the first way to do it was leveraging each other's resources so let's pull some funding we've all been doing this work for you know a while in this space and we haven't moved in itll on quality access are for ability for zero to five high quality early childhood education so let's see what we can do so at that time they pulled this was in about two thousand and five they sort of starting it started experimenting of how to make a really big difference in this area they pooled resources and created the vermont community preschool collaborative which is one of the projects the permanent fund partnered with the  childhood partners and they said ok will we want to take the pre k law that's on the books and it's voluntary you can it's voluntary for town to offer pre k and they said well it's very hard for a town to start offering pre k because even though they're allowed to it's not mandatory and you don't get funding for it until the second year so what this philanthropic group was able to do with some resources and be nimble was say ok we're going to  start up grants build relationships connect the dots and before you knew it twenty percent of communities had been offering pre k eighty percent started offering pre k because of the work we were doing in communities and that led to this idea of for policymakers well wait a minute now it depends where you happen to wake up in the morning if you have access to preach pre kindergarten education that's an equity issue and we really tried to prefer to not do that in vermont when possible so that led to a universal pre k law which we now have in from up was the first state in the country to have a universal pre k law for three and four year olds with the sustainable funding source what we're switches that mean it means higher quality and more fordable for families in vermont so now we have  you know eighty percent almost of of our students i think i think actually it's seventy three percent as of the last census who are three and four year olds that are eligible for pre k are actually taking advantage of it then just the benefits of the amazing absolutely and that's something that's interesting a lot of people approach this work from different angles some just see that this is sort of almost a moral imperative this is what kids and families need and some say well you know what there's also a a cold hard capitalist case for this to it's one of the best return on investments you can possibly get as you're saying dennis you know it's this idea of if you if you help kids and families between this crucial age of their development zero to five you know you save down the road on health care costs you save on even substance abuse you can save on special education and other areas so it's sort of de pressurizes costs down the  road so we actually worked with a business roundtable a couple years ago and did a return on investment study and we showed that in vermont if you actually made the investment to create a system of high quality fordable early childhood education zero to five it would be a sort of one to three return on investment just the tip of the iceberg with the data we had available to us which is pretty pretty good is as return on investments go we have a very very good the website which really explains all the problems in fact there's some alarming statistics showing there the way they grow the seventy eighty ninety with sensory living good playing that again absolutely so one of the first things that we did we decided our mission is high quality affordable early care learning for all by twenty twenty five that's one of the things i wanted to mention earlier actually your question of the history of the permanent fund we've given ourselves a deadline of twenty twenty five and i can tell you you know running this organization nothing holds people's feet to the fire my own included like a deadline so we've created that urgency for ourselves and of very focused mission with a very focused and we're marching forward sort of to that date and we actually will go away the permanent fund will go away and twenty five a little funny really like with the first minute fund so and it's almost like because it makes me sort of explain we're the permanent fund for the we're trying to create permanent lasting change that will live on beyond our lifetime we're do using philanthropy as a change agent for this lasting change so that's sort of our deadline and our mission and the one of the first things we said was we need to understand the population the universe the data before we can even set out to figure out our strategy and how we're going to get this done so we did a real high level census space supply and demand analysis which i think is what you're referring to and that's where we realized seven out of ten kids just to create are sort of you know demand number seven out of ten kids under six  vermont have all available parents in the workforce but how of those do not have access to regulated care and only a third is considered quality so i think some of these numbers we just renewed this report it's called the stalled at the start report and we found that fifty one percent of infants and toddlers that are likely to need care do not have access to any regulated program and seventy seventy percent seventy seven percent of that group don't have access to high quality programming and  infants which are our babies it's even worse and ninety eight percent of infants likely to need care in some counties do not have access to child care so as you can sort of see we do have a bit of a crisis on our hands with how much childcare is available how much is and how much is quality and then for affordability many many families can't afford this some pay up to forty percent of their gross household income on child care more than housing or other parts of their household budgets and you mention the word quality and how is that ensure that the regulation yeah you get involved with that great question quality is one way to talk about it is sort of what it actually looks like on the ground it's nurturing consistent caregiver with friendly and stimulating bright environment exposure to lots of vocabulary and different activities outdoor play and outdoor space  nutritious food so there are sort of these elements of what does it actually look like to really get that high quality for this return on investment these outcomes for these kids that we're looking for and and actually you know a part of it is really health care related access to developmental screenings and then referrals into other services so the ultimate sort of prevention and early intervention so that's that's quality and it's really it's there we have what's called our star system it's  ahead recognition system and so that's what what is called our quality rating system but we actually call it a recognition system and so it's voluntary but you basically as a program you earn points in the quality system at state regulated through the agency of human services and you have to meet certain requirements of minimum standards and then there are also some federal requirements as well and head start for is a great example of a very high quality program that has you know even higher standards example of a type of project we would do and the other one was we did peer to peer mentoring so we created a cohort of very high quality early childhood educators in the state of vermont and we paid them to go out and work with their peers in childcare programs and pre k programs to improve their quality and we went from fourteen percent just so quickly on the sort of background side you know early child education happens in a few different settings it happens in homes home base childcare it happens in centers and happens in public programs pre k classrooms and and so we did a mentoring program and on the home based providers we realized we had a bit of a gap they needed some support didn't have access to a lot of mentoring  resources and only fourteen percent of home based providers were even participating in the quality rating system so we did our mentoring work and move that to seventy eight percent of home based childcare in the star system and it's actually holding there so we did another analysis last year and said we're actually moving the needle on quality of current childcare but when we look at these numbers like you say there are alarming we do not have anough physical care so it's great the quality is going up but it's not going to work for anyone if they can't access it so we've actually pivoted to what's called make way for kids and it's a grant and technical systems program which actually we're going to community by community and we're increasing the number of child high quality child care spaces for children and our goal is actually to increase five hundred new places for kids year to five this year alone and you know it's really exciting to us as we discuss our applications back from that we weren't sure if there was a network of folks out there in vermont who really wanted to open childcare expand their childcare centers there and we had an overwhelming response of people from incredible backgrounds who said i've always wanted to do this and i just needed a little support so it's small start up grants and it's a team that comes in and looks at your situation locally and in your program helps with the business model helps connect dots to businesses to health care hospitals hire it institutions and say how can we actually make this work for us in this town and i also want to mention if our mission is high quality formal early care in learning the way that we do that the permanent fund is through let's grow kids which is a public awareness public will campaign it's really a movement building a movement and then there's vermont birth to five so those are sort of signature projects and if you want to think about it you know let's go kids is this you know high level strategy of changing the way we do business in the state of vermont getting vermonters to be a part of this movement to understand the importance of childcare in their lives and then on the other side  the five and they work very closely together is actually doing program work in the state so technical assistance professional development grants to improve the quality of childcare the accessibility of childcare and also streamline the system to make sure that it is as efficient as possible both those through our programs look very successful can you give us some examples of how those programs changed things for people working with absolutely actually and thank you for that question so let's her kids is a little different it's sort of you know how do you measure something before you've reached your success of changing state policy to add public investment you know and create sort of a different policy context for the the situation so we've had to sort of i always say how do you digest the elephant how do you break it into these chunks because that's a pretty big mission that we're after if it is a big mess it's pretty it's a it's a large enterprise and and you know so let's go kids we've had to say well how are we as you say changing the hearts and minds and making progress one example is the media you know when we first started no one was really talking about early childhood education pre k childcare and now we get about five to ten stories in the press a week you know it changes week to week but we have on average you know every week that goes by we have some stories on the brain development on the shortage of childcare programs you know on various sort of things that are moving through the legislature that affect this issue so it's all of a sudden elevated into people's consciousness consciousness and you know vermont edition had a great  episode a couple weeks ago about getting young people to move to the state of vermont and childcare dominated that issue with callers and others who said well wait a minute why are we talking about child care you know no other state has this right could you just imagine the effect high quality affordable child care as a policy would have on getting young families and businesses to move to vermont we really have a chance to corner the market on this and it will really help our demographic challenges that we're facing as a state so so that's one piece of let's for kids another one is you know the funding into the system two years ago we started working with our sort of advocacy apparatus and we helped work with partners to get a million dollars increase really into the system which is just really a small step it's significant funding but for high quality formal child care you know sort of a very first step then we saw it elevated to a gubernatorial issue another great example of how we're changing sort of the needle both sue mentor and phil scott when they were running for governor made this one of a key the key issues in their campaigns and really elevated it and then when governor scott was elected he made this the the largest increase of any area in his first budget address or not he proposed nine point six million dollars increased into child care and we ended up working together to get two point five which is still a big step up in a very tough you know budget year right here in burlington mayor weinberger has also really taken on this issue and understands economic development workforce development in implications of it and he has reallocated five hundred thousand dollars to create high quality affordable slots for low income families in burlington al annually so you're starting to see things pop up we're seeing businesses step up and really you know say how can i be a part of this problem we thought we might have a little bit of a you know a pitch to make with businesses to see how important is this to your to your bottom line to your workforce and we did we started working with businesses and they said you've got us we see every single day how the lack of the lack of fordable and accessible childcare is really the absenteeism and the recruitment and retention of our employees and not to mention their part of productivity throughout the day so we you know have these wonderful businesses all across in all different sectors in all different sizes stepping up to say how can we be a part of the solution here while most is a word there very interesting read a collaborative lancer payton tell us what that's about so that's i would say one of our key strengths about sort of the culture of the permanent fund and who we are so we happened to be sort of on the ground operator but we would not be here today without other family foundations individuals there's two things about our name they're a little misleading and one is the word permanent and the other one is fund because we're actually not endowed we fundraise annually for work and other expenses yes for our expenses that's right for let's for kids of the five the staffing in the grant making and and we and have really sort of worked to help us leverage funding and make a much bigger difference so we sort of came together and pool resources and pooled sort of our brains and our experiences in the field in this work you could really see it was sort of a catalytic event that shot us to the next level creating vermont birth to five let's grow kids and really putting us on a path to actually be able to move on this really ambitious but achievable goal in the timeframe that we've set out for that's amazing of the issues where we're now almost in the middle of the legislative session in one of the issues you're pushing today another great question so ok this is this is the again how to digest elephant money does public investment is needed because currently how do we pay for you know today high quality early childhood education there is some federal money very little federal money that comes in there's some state funding and through pre k which is more significant now and childcare financial systems and then parents pay in many cases much more than they can afford and then the rest of it is sort of on the backs of those who provide it in other words  childcare providers don't take a livable wage and in some cases you know the average i believe is twenty six thousand dollars as an annual salary for child care providers so and they know they can't charge parents anymore because they're already charging them too much in many cases child providers don't take salaries or benefits because they're trying to balance their budget and not charge parents more so something's gotta give in this business model and that's you know some public investment is certainly going to make a difference here so currently there is a bill to will there's a work in the legislature through the budget to increase nine point six million dollars for child care financial assistance and that is just to keep up with inflation so we are nine nine point six million dollars behind inflation for our current funding mechanism that's child care financial assistance so that is a first step if you were able to make an investment like that today it's a it's the first big step in the right direction to create in the system and then it allows the field to adjust because there are a lot of market factors here so it allows them to sort of hire up and and you know really start improving their quality and starting to get parents to be able to afford their service that's great we have a wonderful website in is well i guess i would say we are trying as i said earlier we are trying to change the way that we do business as a state of vermont so we need vermonters to be a part of this movement you can sign our petition let's go let's go kids dot  you can talk to your legislators you can be a part of figuring out the solution to this thorny problem and then moving it forward if you're a business you can work with us to see how you can support your own childcare needs for your  employees and i would just say the most important thing is be a part of the solution join the campaign and you know if your early childhood educator provider can be in touch with us with our grant making program but really we need to say as a state of vermont that we're going to get this done and it's going to be a really collective effort that's great well thank you very much my special guest today has been allie richards thank you ali see all of the permanent funding for monster overman and this is dennis mcmahon for