Propeller works to narrow New Orleans’ achievement gap by addressing the factors that emerge to impact success throughout a young person’s educational career. Research has shown that an investment in high-quality early childhood education has tremendous benefits throughout a person’s lifetime. Propeller supports this effort by working alongside early childhood education providers to streamline their business operations. We aim to strengthen these centers’ ability to navigate an ever-changing operating environment while maximizing funding opportunities to retain talent and provide essential services. Ensuring quality ECE care means addressing issues regarding sustainability, retention, and access to quality centers and workers. 

The Challenge 

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unique challenges for ECE centers. According to Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, Louisiana early childhood education centers lost more than $245 million collectively between March 2020 and late January 2021. Moreover, daycare providers have reported concerns exacerbated by the pandemic, including lack of federal and state funding access, understaffing, and facility closures. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® Data Book showed accessibility is determined by the number of childcare workers, but in 2020 the ECE workforce dropped from 1.1 million to 677,000. Additionally, many ECE centers have profit margins under 1% which impacts their ability to pay employees. With difficulty hiring and low retention, over a third of ECE operators have considered closing. 

Concerning access, over 2.8 million children ages 0-5 have parents face work challenges due to childcare access resulting in 50% of parents being late and 23% getting fired from work. The nation’s infant-toddler child care crisis has also a staggering effect on the economy, costing $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue every year. In Louisiana, childcare breakdowns, often the largest portion of a family’s budget (United Way’s recent ALICE report found that childcare is the single largest expense for low-income working families in Orleans Parish), cost businesses over $760 million every year. 

The Strategy

Propeller works with ECE centers to expand the number of quality childcare seats and to ensure industry sustainability through the following strategies:

Early Childhood Education Impact Accelerator, a 5-month intensive program which accelerates the growth and expansion of high-quality ECE centers by providing access to capital, contracts, customers, and community. Experienced mentors and subject matter experts deliver 1:1 support, resulting in significant growth in ECE seats, site expansion, and capital secured. 

ACCEL Advancing Child Care through Excellent Leadership group workshops and 1:1 support to support increased hiring and retention through targeted back office/Human Resource workshops and technical assistance, facilities expansion, and tax credits.

Financial Health and Wellness Series to support center directors to access capital through loan packaging, budget, lender introductions, etc.

ECE Shared Resources Platform (in partnership with ECE Shared Resources/CCA For Social Good) is a platform with thousands of back office and operational templates for early childhood education centers. Propeller has 250 licenses for Louisiana ECE providers through early July 2025. Please contact [email protected] if you would to register for this platform.

OUR IMPACT 

As a result of our work accelerating education ventures, Propeller has influenced the following outcomes: 

• We accelerated 55+ education-focused ventures through the Impact Accelerator, including 11 direct Early Childhood Education (ECE) providers who are licensed for 954 seats, representing between 63 and 190 jobs in the sector (based on state-mandated ECE staff ratio requirements).
• Since launching their earned revenue school-based health services during the 2014 Impact Accelerator, the Health and Education Alliance of Louisiana (HEAL), has served over 230,000 students, reaching 24% of students in Louisiana childcare centers and K-12 schools with critical in school health and mental health services. 
• HEAL (Impact Accelerator, 2014-1015) and other education ventures successfully advocated to draw down $401,385,197 in federal Medicaid dollars for Louisiana public schools and early childcare providers from 2015-2022 to provide critical health and mental health services to children, improving education outcomes.
• Through the launch of the Healthy School Food Collaborative (Impact Accelerator 2012-2013, 2016), we were directly responsible for shifting the healthy school food RFP criteria and serving healthy school meals to 22,000+ New Orleans public school children and ECE students annually.

“Propeller has provided an abundance of knowledge on all aspects of operating a successful business, some topics I didn’t even consider when navigating my venture. Through the insight given by my Lead Mentor, who was also accompanied by Propeller staff, I was able to create marketing tools that welcomed a wave of new parents and students into my program! Organization has always been a struggle, but through templates, mentor support, and constant follow-ups, we were also able to develop a functioning system that ensured a smoother operation.”

Aronisha Mickell, Little Steps Early Childhood Education