Erin Switalski, Program Director, Headwaters Foundation
Robyn Windham, Communications Manager, Headwaters Foundation
What happened when a regional health foundation team embarked on a road trip and drank 600 cups of coffee with their neighbors? They discovered that Western Montanans were tired of band-aid solutions and frustrated with interventions that always seemed to arrive too late. People wanted to focus on prevention to address problems at their roots. They hoped to see more collaboration between organizations and across sectors and emphasized that solutions should be locally born and cultivated, focusing especially on kids in their earliest years.
Armed with these insights, Headwaters Foundation launched our first and largest initiative in 2018 to improve the lives of kids and families in our service area of Western Montana. Since our ‘600 cups of coffee tour,’ we’ve invested over $11 million to spark policy and systems change in early childhood across our state. This investment has contributed to historic policy wins, including expanding the state’s childcare subsidy program, introducing an early literacy pilot program, and supporting Indigenous language learning opportunities in early childhood programs in Montana.
These policy wins were powered by a base of organizations that built relationships with local child-serving organizations, parents, and caregivers to understand their needs, then connected with policymakers through strong statewide networks. As a result, more people focus on early childhood issues, families have access to a wider range of services, and more organizations and families actively engage in advocacy efforts. This momentum is transforming the early childhood system in Montana, making it more robust and responsive to the needs of families with young children.
Along the way, we’ve learned many lessons and seen incredible changes in Montana’s early childhood landscape. We hope that these insights will be useful for funders aiming to strengthen early childhood systems, particularly in states with large rural populations and a history of underinvestment in this area.
Lead with Trust
As a founding member of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, we build authentic relationships with our partners and support them as they identify and carry out solutions to their communities’ health challenges. Our commitment to sharing power, remaining flexible, and communicating openly has created a culture of trust, learning, and continuous experimentation and improvement, benefiting both our foundation and the communities we support.
Instead of imposing a prescriptive model, we set out to fund each community to build early childhood initiatives tailored to their unique needs. Our six-year commitment encouraged partners to focus on big picture change, starting by engaging with neighbors and building relationships. By placing our trust in them and investing long-term, our partners have been able to build trust with families, service providers, and decisionmakers in their communities, creating a strong foundation for collaboration to address early childhood issues.
Our trust-based approach also ensures a safe space for open communication. Our partners know that they can come to us when something isn’t working to seek advice and access support beyond their grant. When partners need to pivot, we provide the flexibility for them to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities, adapting their plans and timelines. We offer guidance, resources, and a listening ear, reinforcing our role as a true partner in the work.
Support Local Work, Driven by Communities
We started by engaging early childhood nonprofit leaders from across our region in a community meeting where they nominated and voted on organizations to lead the work in their communities. Once selected, we worked closely with these groups, which we called “early childhood collaboratives,” to develop their unique agendas. We kept our parameters broad, only asking that they work across sectors to create and advance a shared action plan for their community that focused on changing policies and systems impacting children in their earliest years. This approach ensured that each community’s initiative was driven and informed by their unique needs.
As a result of this process, we have seen inspiring examples of these grassroots groups building support for kids and families and engaging those families in policy work. One example is the Early Childhood Coalition of Beaverhead County in rural Dillon, Montana. Through a lot of hard work, partnership building, and community buy-in, they created a local hub called “The Village,” where they offer free parenting classes, a kids’ gear exchange, and other family support programs. More than a direct service organization, the collaborative amplifies the voices of local families at the state level by building relationships with local policymakers and bringing families to advocacy days at the capital.
Shore Up Statewide Coordination
The collaboratives expressed a desire to connect with peers in other communities, access professional development opportunities, and establish a unified statewide advocacy voice. While many foundations often serve as connectors, we wanted to build this capacity within organizations in the state to build an enduring infrastructure that would thrive beyond a single foundation’s initiative. We set out to invest in existing organizations capable of connecting, convening, and supporting local leaders while developing and advancing a statewide policy and advocacy agenda.
While smaller organizations addressed some of these needs, none covered them all. Initially, we funded and paired three organizations with distinct cultures and missions, hoping they’d collectively lead a statewide office. This “forced marriage” approach didn’t pan out. Without a clear leader, grant partners continued to look to us for coordination and direction. After months of struggle, we decided to provide seed funding to create a new nonprofit, Zero to Five Montana, that served as a backbone organization and helped clarify leadership roles. We learned not to assume that people who do not already have a history of partnership will want or be able to collaborate.
Supercharge with Technical Assistance
Many of the newly hired local leaders told us they needed support and training. We provided some professional development opportunities, but the most impactful technical assistance came out of our partnership with the University of Montana (UM) Center for Children, Families, and Workforce Development. An original partner in the “forced marriage” scenario described above, the UM Center offered an array of support options to our early childhood partners, from coaching to research and grant writing assistance to graphic design.
For example, with the UM Center’s data expertise, the Early Childhood Coalition of Beaverhead County conducted a community survey to identify the best ways to support local families. The coalition collaborated closely with UM Center to design the survey, collect and analyze data, and share the findings. This process equipped them with valuable insights to ensure that their future programming met the needs expressed by families in their community.
An early learning for us was that technical assistance should be flexible, but not so open-ended that partners do not know how to use it. At first, the support available through UM Center was too ambiguous. Few collaborative leaders took advantage of their resources until they better specified their offerings and began to actively reach out to partners. Over time, the UM Center built trust with community leaders, making it easier for partners to seek help with various queries and projects.
Expand the Ecosystem
Initially, we focused solely on funding local collaboratives and a statewide office, but we soon saw the need for more robust funding for Montana’s entire early childhood ecosystem. While one grantmaker—especially a regional foundation—cannot fund everything, we now support multiple coalition efforts to coordinate and link policy work statewide. These efforts include:
- a statewide coalition that connects local early childhood collaboratives across the state,
- a policy coalition that leverages the voices of parents and childcare providers specifically to increase childcare access and affordability, and
- a home visiting coalition that advocates for more funding for early intervention programs.
These coalitions include many of our original partners, while creating space for a larger group of organizations, parents, and other concerned Montanans to get involved in advocacy for our state’s youngest kids and families. Enlarging the early childhood ecosystem has helped bring new and diverse voices into the work and expand the base of people calling for improvements to the state’s early childhood system.
Headwaters Foundation’s journey from ‘600 cups of coffee’ to a strong early childhood initiative was driven by trust in community. Our experiences along the way illustrate the importance of listening to and empowering communities, letting collaboration happen naturally, providing flexible yet tangible support beyond grantmaking, and considering the broader ecosystem. We hope these lessons can guide other funders’ efforts to create a brighter future for children in their region and beyond.
Learn more about Headwaters Foundation and our partners at www.headwatersmt.org and connect with us on LinkedIn.