Giving Compass' Take:

• The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) hopes that opportunity zone incentives in the tax code can be used to build and improve early childhood care facilities, particularly in areas where there are none. 

• Why should philanthropists consider funding early childhood care facilities? 

• Read about how community foundations can help make the most of opportunity zones. 

The much-debated 2017 federal tax law included a new program in which low-income census tracts can be designated as Opportunity Zones, which are meant to encourage private investment in exchange for exemptions from certain capital gains taxes.

Now, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington, D.C.,-based think tank, is hoping the incentive program can be used to build and improve child care and preschool facilities, particularly in areas considered child care “deserts.”

“If you want business, you want housing, you want anything — you need child care,” Linda Smith, BPC’s director of early childhood policy and former deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an interview.]

BPC is hoping that as community leaders and investors look at sites for development or how to support entrepreneurial enterprises, they’ll consider early childhood as part of their overall vision. The funds can be used for both new businesses and the renovation of existing facilities.

Part of increasing young children’s access to high-quality child care and preschool programs is opening and upgrading the supply of centers and classrooms specifically designed for young children. The challenge, Smith said, is early childhood programs are led by educators “who care about children and are schooled in child development, but are not schooled in construction and renovation, finance and business.”

“Without the public sector taking the initiative to plan and invest in new facilities, supply bottlenecks are inevitable,” the authors wrote. “Meanwhile, children will either go unserved or public administrators will resort to stopgap policies, such as shortening the program day to accommodate double and even triple sessions or reducing program standards to expand the pool of eligible providers.”

Read the full article about early childhood care by Linda Jacobson at Education Dive