A Message to Our Supporters
This has been another incredible year of growth for Neighborhood Villages, our programs, and our partners, as we work together to realize our vision for a transformed early education and child care system that lifts up educators and sets every child and family up to thrive. Together, we’re showing that it IS possible to innovate, build, and scale an early childhood education system that centers equity, educators, providers, and families.
Thank you for being part of our movement!
Our Impact
This year, we made deep investments in a network of early education providers, known as “The Neighborhood,” serving over 900 young children ages 0-5 in high-poverty neighborhoods across Boston. We partnered with government to bring what works in the Neighborhood to scale, serving early education programs in 190 cities and towns across the Commonwealth.
Our research and advocacy initiatives helped to advance ground-breaking policy and to win an historic $1.5 Billion dollar investment in early education and care in the Massachusetts state budget. And we’re helping to drive a new conversation about the imperative to fix our nation’s broken child care system.
“Philanthropic entities are better positioned to take risks with funding, and as such, they are able to fund innovative programs that test new ideas for how the sector could operate—such as Neighborhood Villages’ work to offer centralized structural supports to providers. Some state leaders have taken an interest in this work, so the program now receives public dollars as well—demonstrating how pilots can offer proof-of-concept and later be adopted and scaled by the state government.”
The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy and The Boston Foundation, “Investment in Early Education and Care in Massachusetts: Celebrating Successes, Looking Ahead.”
Our Programs
Investing in the Early Childhood Education Workforce
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Degree Support
Neighborhood Villages’ talented College Support team supported 315 educators and administrators in their pursuit of and enrollment in college courses, advanced credentials, and higher-education degrees.
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Registered Apprenticeship
In 2024, our program became the largest early childhood education Registered Apprenticeship program in Massachusetts and the first in the country to graduate educators seeking to become program Directors upon completing their apprenticeship year.
Bringing High Quality Teaching and Learning Supports to Early Education Classrooms
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Teaching and Learning Supports
Our expert Teaching and Learning team this year provided more than 100 hours of high-touch coaching and mentoring support for educators across our network of Neighborhood providers, and created a suite of free, publicly available webinars designed to enhance educators’ instructional skills.
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Curriculum
After more than a year of co-design, implementation, and evaluation in partnership with early educators, playbased learning experts, and our partners at the LEGO Foundation and Boston Public Schools, Neighborhood Villages was thrilled to officially launch our groundbreaking toddler curriculum, “Learning Through Exploration.”
Supporting Early Relational Health
Early relational health refers to the ability of young children and their caregivers to form strong, stable relationships that support healthy brain development and reduce the impact of early stress.
This year, Neighborhood Villages made bold strides in bringing solutions to the early childhood mental health crisis. In partnership with early education programs and infant and early childhood mental health experts across Massachusetts, we created a first-of-its-kind roadmap of the resources required to meet the full-scope early relational health needs of children in early education settings.
“Congratulations to Neighborhood Villages for securing this remarkable mental and behavioral health funding. Based on their innovative proposal, we know that they will make a significant impact, and we look forward to finding more ways to collaborate as their program unfolds.”
Tracy Sylven Mass General Brigham’s Director of Community Health for Brigham and Women’s/Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital
Operations and Family Support
Compared with K-12 school districts, which provide schools with a broad range of support services beyond the classroom, early childhood education centers are too often on their own when it comes to school operations and wraparound support for children and families.
Through modeling centralized operations and family-support infrastructure, Neighborhood Villages is demonstrating how early education programs can serve as ecosystems of support that help families access the wraparound resources and material goods they need to thrive.
Policy & Advocacy
Creating Lasting Policy Change
This year, Governor Maura Healey signed the Commonwealth’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget, which included critical investments in early education and codified into law landmark child care policy reforms. We are proud to have helped Massachusetts take a huge step forward towards a transformed early childhood education system that elevates early educators, improves access to quality early education programs, and lays a solid foundation for future generations to thrive.
Advocacy in Action
We also showed up in force, spending hours testifying at the Massachusetts State House and demanding that policy makers “Fix Child Care.”
“Child care is good for everyone. We don’t think it’s okay to ask families to pay $30k/year and we don’t think it’s okay to ask educators to accept poverty wages and no benefits. It’s time we acknowledge and invest in our youngest learners and early educators too.”
No One is Coming to Save Us: Season 4
Season 4 of our nationally acclaimed podcast digs deeper into our nation’s most pressing challenges – intergenerational poverty, homelessness, and climate change – to uncover their deep, often surprising, connections with child care.
Shortly after it’s release, NOICTSU was the #1 ranked Apple podcast for Children and Families!
In the News
The child care crisis is now increasingly at the forefront of public conversations as one of the biggest economic barriers facing families today. This year, we’ve seen Neighborhood Villages’ innovative solutions continue to be elevated by and amplified across media, both in Massachusetts and nationally.
In FY24, Neighborhood Villages had 185 total media placements, which amounts to 209,755,800+ UMV (Unique Monthly Visitors).
Our Financials
Our Supporters & Partners
We are grateful to the individuals and institutions who generously supported our mission and programs this year.
View the 2023-24 list of supporters, staff, and board of directors here.