Fortune Reinvent Fortune

In today's Where's My Village? we are exploring another pillar that's been supporting families and their kids for a long time - the community. 
In the final episode of the series, Fortune's Ellen McGirt returns to explore how we can create community in a country that would rather we not.
This episode features the story of Fela Barclift and Little Sun People, a childcare center Barclift founded in 1980 to serve and strengthen the Brooklyn community it’s proud to call home.
Before we get to Little Sun People, we hear from Julia Gutierrez, a mom and infant mental health advocate from rural Michigan. Gutierrez describes how her family came together to help raise her two children, creating an invaluable support system that helped her through some tough times.
And we hear from Mia Birdsong, the author of How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship and Community, about what is currently separating us from the human need for community and how she reconnects to it in her own life.
Thank you for coming on this journey with us over these five episodes of Where’s My Village?  We’re proud to have brought to you the stories of people who are working to make childcare accessible for all of us. And we know we have only scratched the surface of what’s out there...until next time, take good care of yourselves and each other! 
Where's My Village? is written, produced and reported by Alexis Haut. Nicole Vergalla is our editor.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Private investment in childcare companies doubled between 2020 and 2021, and the range of apps, software, products and services investors can put their money into is growing. Many think private dollars have the potential to transform the childcare industry, others think involving private investors is a risky endeavor.
In this episode of Where's My Village?, Fortune senior writer Megan Leonhardt digs deeper into the opportunity for and pros and cons of private investment in childcare.
Shruthi Jayaram of Dalberg Advisors and Jess Lee of Sequoia Capital talk through why investors have been skeptical of investing in care in the past and what's changed in the past few years.
Chris Bennett, the CEO of Wonderschool. discusses his decision to focus on in home providers, how many providers on the Wonderschool platform earn almost triple the national average and his vision for the company's future. Wonderschool is a childcare management platform that works with home-based providers to streamline and grow their businesses.
We also hear from home-based providers about the realities of their professions and experts in the field on their concerns about private investment in childcare.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where's My Village? is off this week. In the meantime, Ellen McGirt wants to share with you a conversation that happened recently at a Fortune event - the Most Powerful Women Summit. This is a gathering of some of the most influential women in the business world. Fortune gathers the group each year to learn from each other and discuss some of the biggest issues of the day. This year, childcare was on that list of hot topics. Fortune editor Ruth Umoh spoke with Carol Juel, the Chief Technology and Operating Officer of Synchrony, and Reshma Saujani, the Founder of Girls Who Code and The Marshall Plan for Moms, about ways companies can support working moms.
Where's My Village? will be back with a new episode next week, in which Fortune senior writer Megan Leonhardt digs into how a growing number of entrepreneurs and investors are approaching the childcare crisis as a business opportunity.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Families have known for years that reliable childcare is directly tied to parents' ability to work. But the pandemic made this painfully clear to employers, spurring many to rethink the benefits they offer employees.
In this episode of Where's My Village?, Fortune senior writer Maria Aspan explores how two companies and one New York City union have decided to support their workers with kids.
First up, Bank of America. The company, which employs over 200,000 people, extended a range of childcare offerings during the pandemic and ultimately decided to make several of them permanent.
Next, Corning, Inc. For years the Fortune 500 company has helped fund daycares and afterschool centers that are available to the entire community.
And finally, the New York City 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers union. For 30 years companies that employee union members have contributed money to a fund that subsidies childcare for union families.
Why have these very different employers decided to invest so heavily in childcare? And how has this choice impacted their workers? Find out in this week's Where's My Village?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to providing support for America's childcare infrastructure, the federal government has proven infamously unreliable. But - on the bright side - in the absence of federal action, states and cities have become hot beds for childcare innovation. In this episode of Where's My Village? host Beth Kowitt investigates how one New England state and a city in Kansas are finding both the political will and the financial resources to provide reliable, affordable childcare to their residents.
Also in this episode, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) who has led the charge for childcare funding in the federal government for well over 20 years.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reinvent is proud to present Where's My Village?, Fortune's podcast about America's childcare crisis and the stories of people who are trying to fix it. The childcare industry in the U.S. has been in a precarious position for years. Childcare workers are chronically underpaid, yet quality care is hard to find - and for many families it's almost prohibitively expensive. This has long been a problem that individuals struggled to solve alone. But when COVID forced much of the industry to shut down, the problem burst into the open. It quickly became clear to many that childcare is essential to the country's economic health. Limited childcare options limit the ability of parents - often of mothers - to participate fully in the workforce.
Luckily there are entrepreneurs, corporate executives, community leaders and politicians who see this moment as an opportunity to make things better. In each episode of Where's My Village, Fortune reporters will introduce you to these people who are striving to improve the system.
But in the first episode of this limited series, host Ellen McGirt seeks to uncover how the country got into its current childcare mess. McGirt talks to organizers, advocates, historians, and policy experts about the historical roots and current state of America's childcare infrastructure and why they have hope for its future.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices