Annemarie Valdez has been a champion for children and youth for more than two decades. Her experience includes leading a statewide infant mortality prevention organization in Illinois; serving as CEO of Child’s Hope, a Michigan nonprofit committed to preventing child abuse and neglect; and heading Detroit’s Youth Development Commission. Since 2015, Valdez has led First Steps Kent, a nonprofit organization that administers Kent County, MI’s, Ready by Five Early Childhood Millage, which provides dedicated funding for a wide range of early childhood programs in the county. As the president and CEO of First Steps Kent, Valdez oversaw a campaign to establish a voter-approved children’s fund that raises more than $5 million annually for programs that improve the health, school readiness, and well-being of children under age five in Kent County. In 2022, the Grand Rapids Business Journal recognized her as one of the top 200 most powerful business leaders in West Michigan.

For these reasons and more, we are thrilled to name Valdez our 2022 Children’s Funding Champion. Valdez joins Margaret Brodkin (2019) and Kimberly Krupa and Ron Ellington (2020) as recipients of the award. We spoke with Valdez about her accomplishments and career dedicated to children and youth. You can watch the full video interview and read an edited version of our conversation below.

Children’s Funding Project: Where did your passion for supporting children and youth begin?

Valdez: Well, I think back to the fact that both of my parents came to this country from Mexico. When I was very young, there were few opportunities, and we lived in a poor area where we saw a lot of need and a lot of struggle. I guess from my earliest days I can remember wanting to help, wanting to be a helper, wanting to make sure that anything I did in this life contributed to lasting change.

Children’s Funding Project: You were instrumental in helping the Ready by Five Early Childhood Millage pass in 2018. What were the keys to that success?

Valdez: The most important keys to really seeing through a ballot measure, and doing the strong education side, is partnering with different sectors including the business community, making sure that the education community—and that’s really the school system—are standing with you and knowing that the change that you’re looking to do is important for everyone in the community.

Children’s Funding Project: How has the Ready by Five Early Childhood Millage benefitted Kent County’s children?

Valdez: It’s a great question. Something that we noticed in our community early on that I think many communities can identify with is there is a definite need for enhanced, improved navigation for families. So we often hear about a no-wrong-door approach. But what does that really mean? What it means is that when a family enters a gateway into the early childhood system that they’re directed to the services that they need to make sure that their children are developmentally on track. That isn’t easy to do. You have to make sure that there’s seamless referrals for families so they don’t get caught up in a system that really doesn’t help them get to the services that they need.

Children’s Funding Project: How has First Steps Kent supported the local community during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Valdez: When I think about the past two years and the struggles that everyone faced, one of the pieces of early childhood that came to the forefront in such a strong way, even though it was a crisis prior to the pandemic [is] child care. The discussion about it rose to the top of local and national dialogues because [of the] workforce. Folks couldn’t get back into the workforce if we didn’t address child care. So it was a big part of our work, making sure to keep child care providers open during those early days of the pandemic, when they were struggling to stay in business.

Another part was with the dedicated funding of the Ready by Five millage, making sure that we addressed the concerns of providers who were struggling to still provide services to families, and trying to listen to families as to what they needed during those early days of the pandemic and beyond. Really, what families were telling us is that they needed activities for their young children, who were now pretty much stuck at home. So we were able to create with our partners a way to deliver activities to families on their doorsteps, and making sure that home visiting still occurred but it might have been virtually. All of those pieces helped knit together a stronger foundation of providing services in the early childhood realm.

Children’s Funding Project: Tell us about the role First Steps Kent is playing in administering Michigan’s American Rescue Plan funds.

Valdez: Early on in the pandemic, there were stimulus dollars that came through CARES Act [the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act]. We learned a lot from that round, especially with child care as I mentioned, and making sure that we were thinking about keeping child care businesses open. When the American Rescue Plan dollars came to be, the state of Michigan got a significant amount—$1.4 billion specifically for child care stabilization and other supports to child care providers. We were called on by the state to work with them, and many other community-based organizations.

The state really listened to us. They knew that we had a direct line to child care providers and the challenges and barriers that they had. It was a unique situation where our state decision-makers were listening to community-based organizations across the state, and in particular some of the lessons that we learned here in Kent County. As I mentioned, with the earlier stimulus dollars we took those lessons to bear, and we made sure that we didn’t make the same mistakes that we made early on, and tried to get that funding out in a way that allocated dollars where they were needed and that’s what’s happening right now.

Last year, I would say in December, and then this year in January, over $365 million in stabilization grants went out to child care providers. Now here in March and April we are doing a similar amount of about $350 million going out to stabilize child care businesses. But what I will say is it’s really only helping them catch up because they were very far behind.

Children’s Funding Project: In your time leading First Steps Kent, what is your proudest accomplishment?

Valdez: I think ensuring that the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion is embedded in everything that we do—and that’s not an easy task. It is something that we talk about often. But to actually make sure that it is happening on a daily basis, and that we’re lifting voices and that we’re listening to the authentic lived experiences from parents, that is a source of pride because what it has turned into for us here is working with local universities and colleges to develop a curriculum that will be used with early educators, and making sure that they understand what’s at stake with our youngest children being able to implement those strategies in the classroom.

Children’s Funding Project: What advice do you have for other communities interested in creating a voter-approved children’s fund or other dedicated source of funding to support kids?

Valdez: My advice—and it won’t be easy to do but it’s really important—is to try in every way

you can, not only to build relationships, but to reduce contention among the stakeholders in your community. You might think everything’s fine and for the most part it is. But there are contentions that arise especially when money’s involved, and you’d be surprised that people have strong opinions as to what that money should be used for. So I think it’s important to bring those stakeholders together and create a strong plan for after you accomplish your ballot measure, and are finally generating dedicated funding streams. If you’re able to do that, it’s important prior to achieving that to have your strategies and your goals planned out really well so everybody is on the same page, and they understand what’s at stake and what can be accomplished.

Kristen Loschert is communications director at Children’s Funding Project. Shane Linden, communications associate II, contributed to this blog.