Allie Farrell, Children’s Funding Project: I’d like to begin by asking you to share a bit about the Buell Foundation’s interest in strategic public financing. Why was it important to the foundation to support communities in their pursuit of local public funding? 

Jason Callegari, Buell Foundation: The Buell Foundation has been supporting early childhood efforts across the state of Colorado for decades, in all 64 counties of Colorado. Recently, our foundation increased our focus on advocacy, recognizing the scale of the challenges inherent to building a high-functioning early childhood system that works for children, families, and the caregiving workforce. That doesn’t currently exist in Colorado. 

We looked at a document from UC Berkeley and the Economic Policy Institute, a state-based report called A Values-Based Budget for Early Childhood Education. It paints a picture of the true cost of a child care system that provides teachers with livable wages and benefits, and families with affordability and access.

The report indicated that the gap for that cost just in the state of Colorado was in the billions. That was really important for our work to realize the dream that is articulated in a values-based budget and to ensure that our investments in quality care were having our intended impact. We realized we need a lot more revenue in the early childhood system. We think that will look more like the K-12 system, with local, state, and federal investments. Our primary locus of control in Colorado is at the state and local level, so an explicit focus on local financing made sense to us. 

A few other key points that were important factors in focusing our work in this area were that our current governor, Gov. Jared Polis, is an early childhood advocate, and he’s made major investments, including full-day kindergarten and advocated for this passage of universal preschool, which was passed by a vote of the people here in Colorado. He also signed two major tax credits into law: a Family Affordability Tax Credit and the Caregiver Tax Credit. So there’s a policy window to maximize here in terms of having a focus and an energy around early childhood. 

At the same time, like many other funders, we realized the COVID-19 pandemic really opened the public’s eye to the need for additional investment, and we wanted to capitalize on that opportunity as well. And then, Colorado also has a strong focus on local control and a budget that’s quite constrained, and any new taxes here in Colorado must be approved by a vote of the people.  

Together, these really focused our effort, and why we would engage at the local level while also having conversations at the state level.

Allie Farrell: Yes, the focus on this local funding window of opportunity is powerful. The toolkit you produced is really comprehensive, with case studies, templates, and links to national resources while also being specific to the local Colorado context. 

Jason Callegari: We listened to the communities we were working with and heard from leaders who wanted to make a difference in this space—it might have been the CEO of a hospital or a county commissioner, or the superintendent of a school district, and they might say, “I know how to do a mill levy,” “I know how to rebuild roads,” or “I know how to support our people, but I don’t know the tools that are available in early childhood to make a difference, and I want to because it’s impacting us.” So  our toolkit and case studies are really trying to respond to that. 

Allie Farrell: Can you talk a little bit about the outcomes that you’re starting to see from the Foundation’s local financing initiative?

Jason Callegari: We’re really new here: We engaged consultants to create our local financing toolkit in December 2023 and they completed it in March 2024. In a short timeframe, we’ve offered grants to five or six different local efforts. Two local measures, one that Buell provided a grant for, [were on] the ballot this November [2024]. They’re really small initiatives, they’re at the county level and they’re focused on lodging taxes, and [if they pass] they’ll raise about a million or $2 million, but that’s a lot more money than what we’re able to give [in these communities] as a philanthropic effort in the state of Colorado. So for us, that [is] a major win. 

Additionally, showing up in this space has allowed us to have conversations with entities that we haven’t traditionally had conversations with in our grantmaking. We’re building relationships with county and municipal leaders, economic development organizations, and Chambers of Commerce, and the webinars we host on these topics are engaging a different set of leaders who are interested in these solutions. This approach has allowed us to open up new lines of questioning with elected officials, and we think that will benefit not just local financing conversations, but also statewide advocacy efforts. 

In these conversations at the community level, a lot of questions come up—not just on local financing, but how to work better with your community college, or how to engage senior citizens as a part of the early childhood workforce. We’re able to provide value in connecting those conversations to grantees we have throughout the state or to other leaders who are working on similar challenges. 

So just engaging in a different way, showing up with different leaders has had a lot more ripple effects than we imagined.

Allie Farrell: Every time I talk to you, it’s striking just how much you’re rolling up your sleeves, and interlocking arms with everyone else that’s doing this work. Can you talk to us a little bit about any lessons you’ve learned throughout doing this work so far? Have you faced any challenges as a foundation engaging in this policy and advocacy space?

Jason Callegari: Something that’s not very surprising but always important to learn and relearn is that a lot of this work is really dependent on trusting relationships. That takes a lot of time, especially as a statewide funder where you might not live in the community that you’re hoping to support. A community leader, whether it’s the Chamber of Commerce head or an elected official, might be meeting you for the first time in some of these conversations, and building trust does take time. 

All of this work takes more time than you think, but in the long run, it will pay dividends.

The other thing I will say is that there are tons of resources out here to support people. You learn a lot from engaging in conversations around who can provide needs assessments in communities, who can help with cost modeling, and what have other consultants who have engaged in this space already learned from communities who have gone through this? We’re learning from the challenges they experienced and trying to communicate that, and as we’re learning [from our own] challenges along the way, we’re trying to be planful about documenting and sharing those with the folks we’re giving grants to right now.

Allie Farrell: That’s great. That’s one of our big goals of talking to you and other funders: To share these learnings so we can build on them as this movement grows. With that in mind, this last question I have for you is, what advice do you have for other funders who are thinking about getting involved in strategic public financing?

Jason Callegari: I would just reiterate that there’s a ton of resources and experts who can support a foundation as they determine their role and ensure that they’re compliant with IRS rules. With our board and our staff, we had to go through a process to make sure that we were all on the same page, that we understood where our red lines were as a foundation, which might be different than even the IRS rules, and that everyone felt comfortable and confident. Then we relooked at those over time. And then with experts like [Children’s Funding Project], who can help us walk through those things. 

“My advice is to dive in. Don’t be afraid of learning, and reach out to anybody else who’s already engaged in this.”—Jason Callegari

I would also say: The work is worth it even if a local ballot measure doesn’t pass, because to make change, you have to work with a really broad constituency. Through convening and dialogue, you’re going to build a greater understanding of the challenges in the early childhood community. Just by bringing people together, you’ll come up with creative solutions to problems along the way. Engaging with those individuals might not mean that you get a ballot measure. Maybe it means there’s a little bit of general fund money at the county that gets put into this. Maybe it means that other philanthropic partners show up in a different way and that there are other needs and changes identified. You’ll build a broader policy coalition. 

My advice is to dive in. Don’t be afraid of learning, and reach out to anybody else who’s already engaged in this because everyone’s been very helpful to us, and I know we’d be helpful to others who have questions as well.

Learn more about the ways funders can help communities secure sustained public funding for children and youth in our fact sheet Leaders and Champions: The Role of Funders in Strategic Public Financing.