Early Childhood

Leaders of Color Collaborative

Creating a New Reality for Early Childhood Leaders of Color

The Early Childhood Leaders of Color (EC LOC) Collaborative is a nationwide collaborative focused on increasing the sustainability, social capital, and power of EC LOC.

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What makes the Collaborative unique?

  • Creating opportunities for peer-to-peer connection and networking.

  • Engaging in culturally responsive and equity-centered skills building and wisdom sharing for EC LOC

  • Supporting individual and collective healing and restoration as an end, not only as a means

  • Using collective power to advocate for transformative funding and policy changes

Impact Goals

Sustainability. Social Capital. Power.

Three priority impact areas identified by EC LOC members and our working group:

  1. Increased sustainability as a leader in the ECD field

  2. Increased social capital among EC LOC in the field

  3. Increased power for EC LOC in the field

Interviews & More

 

Our Partners

Collaborators

Funders

 

How We Got Here

Promise Venture Studio, the National Equity Project, Surge Institute, and The Bridgespan Group collaborated to better understand the equity challenges that early childhood nonprofit leaders of color (EC LOC) face and the barriers that preempt them from achieving their organizational missions.

By the Numbers

 
 
 

Participants in one of two Liberatory Design Workshops hosted in 2022

What we've heard is clear:

The current ecosystem of support for leaders of color in early childhood is inequitable and insufficient as they look to achieve their aspirations for impact with their organizations and their communities.

EC LOC spoke powerfully about their experiences, elevating the following themes as key to amplifying their efforts to support families and children to thrive.

Achieving our impact goals requires us to think about how we build a collective power that I still don’t think we have.
There is a need for collaborative space. There are challenges across that feel shared and in some ways the system is designed to keep groups apart.