# As New York Nears an Early Care Milestone, This Funder Collaborative Is Advancing the Cause

**By:** Connie Matthiessen  
**Published:** 2026-03-24T11:34:12-07:00  
**Source:** [Connie Matthiessen](https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/as-new-york-nears-an-early-care-milestone-this-funder-collaborative-is-advancing-the-cause)

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Credit: FamVeld/Shutterstock
New York State may soon take a historic step by adopting a system of universal child care. Support from the governor and New York City’s new mayor are accelerating the pace of change; working together, they have already introduced initiatives to expand early care and learning. If New York does elect to provide childcare for all its children, it will be only the second state — after New Mexico — to do so. It’s a goal that Liftoff WNY, a funder collaborative in western New York State, has been working toward as part of a broad coalition of parents, early educators, advocates and funders throughout the state and beyond. 
Few people today — from parents to policymakers — disagree about how important it is to provide quality care and early education for our youngest children. A vast and growing body of research demonstrates the value of a nurturing early environment on developing brains, and the lifelong benefits. But when it comes to early care and education, the U.S. continues to fall short — shockingly so when compared to peer countries around the world. 
Hope for substantial change in early ed policies at the federal level appears dim under the Trump administration, which has attempted to cut Head Start programs and freeze child care funds to Minnesota and four other blue states, on top of cuts to education and special education programs. And strained budgets have forced some states to reduce funding for early care programs, according to a New America overview. But that analysis found that several states have actually increased their support, Arizona, Illinois and Pennsylvania among them. 
Some cities are acting, too: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has announced child care subsidies, and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani famously made universal child care a centerpiece of his campaign. 
Much of this recent progress has been fueled by the patient, multi-year efforts of local, regional and national advocates and organizations. Philanthropy has also played a key role — nationally, through a number of major funders and the many members of the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative, and regionally, through coalitions like Liftoff WNY. 
As rising early care costs threaten the budgets of a growing number of families, the issue is likely to become increasingly central in efforts to tackle affordability. Liftoff WNY provides an example of persistence and funder coordination helping an advocacy movement set the stage for major changes, given the right political moment.
A regional coalition of like-minded funders
Despite New York’s status as a philanthropy powerhouse, Liftoff WNY is the only early childhood funder collaborative in the state. It was created in 2017 by a group of seven grantmakers that work in the Western New York region, including the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation, the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York, the John R. Oishei Foundation, the Western New York Foundation and the James H. Cummings Foundation. Launched as “The WNY Early Childhood Funders for Change,” the coalition was renamed Liftoff WNY in 2018. 
“These grantmakers came together in recognition of the decades of brain science and research of how important the early years are,” said Rachel Bonsignore, Liftoff’s director. “They also recognized that a lot of their grantmaking and philanthropic support was focused on K through 12 education — not young children — and that within the public school system, particularly within the greater Buffalo area, the third grade math and reading scores were on a decline.” In addition to members’ grantmaking, Bonsignore pointed to Liftoff’s role as “an aligned action network to call on our partners in government to invest early through good public policy and funding decisions.”
That original core group of funders invited other grantmakers from across an eight-county region to join, and by the time Bonsignore was hired in late 2019, the number of member organizations had grown to 30. The goal was “to come together for the purposes of learning, connection, bringing resources, and just playing in the sandbox together in a new and different way than they’ve done in the past,” Bonsignore said. “At Liftoff, we do a little bit of everything. I like to say that we try to be a good dance partner, to lead when it’s time to dance, but not step on toes.” 
New York is a large state; the eight counties in Liftoff’s region comprise an area just the size of Connecticut. That includes a mix of urban, suburban and rural communities with about 100,000 children under the age of five, 30,000 of whom live in rural areas. Liftoff WNY’s recent report, “Rural Realities: The State of Childcare in Rural Western New York,” found that “Every rural county in Western New York can be characterized as a child care desert, where there are more than three children under five per licensed child care slot.” Liftoff aims to ensure that more remote regions have a voice and that their needs are addressed as the state’s new early care strategies take shape. 
As part of its commitment to very young children, Liftoff supports universal developmental screening to detect and address learning issues and delays. The organization collaborates with Help Me Grow New York and Help Me Grow Western New York, which promote increased access to developmental screening, and provide information, referrals, care coordination and support for families. Early childhood screening and intervention has been shown to be highly effective; 1 out of 3 children who receive early intervention enter school without requiring special education services. Liftoff considers early intervention and preschool special education essential elements of early education — elements that are too often overlooked. “When we talk about universal child care for all children, we mean all children, not just typically developing kids,” Bonsignore said.
Why Liftoff WNY is meeting a hopeful moment on early care and education
Liftoff WNY is a member of the Empire State Campaign for Child Care, a large coalition of parents, early educators and advocacy organizations that has been working for close to a decade to establish a system of universal child care in New York State. Now, it looks like that could actually happen with the support of both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Mamdani. 
Earlier this month, Hochul and Mamdani announced the first four New York communities where 2,000 childcare slots for two-year-olds will be rolled out, a step the governor’s office described as “laying the groundwork to deliver universal child care across the state.” If approved, the governor’s plan also creates a State Office of Child Care and Early Education proposed for 2027, and delivers full-day pre-K for all four-year-olds by the 2028–29 school year.
“We’re meeting the moment right now, that is for sure,” Bonsignore said. “There is both political and public will. So many advocates and organizations have been on this path for a decade, if not longer, and we’ve finally reached this moment where we’re seeing historic investments in the early care and learning system proposed by the governor — whether that’s universal child care or the expansion of four-year-old prekindergarten, or increasing childcare assistance.”
The New York State Senate and Assembly have both put forward budget proposals that include investments in early care and learning, and the process is reaching its final weeks of negotiations. “The budgets by both the Assembly and the Senate are aspirational and also actionable,” Bonsignore said. “We are very much in tune with how these discussions and negotiations are progressing, and we are also encouraging our members to show their support with their local representatives and partners in Albany to say, ‘let’s get this across the finish line.’”
Bonsignore is particularly concerned about compensation for early educators. Liftoff’s “Rural Realities” report concluded that in the Western New York region, early educators are among the lowest paid workers: 97% of jobs pay more than child care.
“We want to keep educators in the field and enable them to see that there’s a career path, that there are opportunities to grow within this profession,” she said. “We’re hopeful that in the final enacted budget, we will see a greater investment in the workforce than what we’ve seen to date.”
The trajectory of Liftoff WNY, as well as the Empire State Campaign for Child Care and the broader movement, is a good demonstration of the power of advocacy giving. There can be dry spells where such funding can seem futile, but by persisting in giving to advocates, funders can help lay the groundwork for big changes when the political winds do prove favorable. If public budgets are involved, the potential impact can far outweigh what a grantmaker could achieve with more direct forms of support.
Still, as the state approaches this historic milestone, questions remain about funding, as well as the form New York’s new system will take and how it will be implemented. “It’s a very exciting moment,” said Bonsignore. “But a policy is only as good as its implementation, so we want to make sure we are doing our due diligence as community leaders and community change agents to make sure all our children are well represented in these policy decisions.”