Voices for Healthy Kids 2022 Annual Progress Report
Letters from Leadership
From the American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown
Childhood is but a grain in the sands of time—it seems in a blink babies go from our protective arms into the world. Giving them the best opportunity for a long, healthy life is the aim of Voices for Healthy Kids.
Created in 2013 by the American Heart Association with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Voices for Healthy Kids champions policies to equitably improve the communities where children live, learn and play—especially those historically impacted by health and economic disparities.
While equity has always been our focus, last fiscal year inspired a reimagining of purpose, driving the Voices team to dig deeper for better ways to help children thrive amid inequities heightened by the pandemic.
With an investment by RWJF, we created a national action plan to support grassroots advocacy and develop resources to transform communities in partnership with the people who live there.
Today, more families in food deserts have access to fresh produce, streets and sidewalks in several cities are safer for biking and walking, the Keep Kids Fed Act extends pandemic-era school meal waivers, the Healthy Kids’ Meal Bill applies to both food and drinks and several states have expanded Medicaid.
That’s only a snapshot.
I am proud to say that in 10 years, Voices for Healthy Kids has achieved 346 policy successes, touched 281 million lives and secured $5.3 billion to build healthier communities.
We are called to make even greater strides this year. Lighting our path is the Association’s 2024 Impact Goal to advance cardiovascular health for all, including identifying and removing barriers to healthcare access and quality.
I celebrate staff and volunteer advocates for making an extraordinary impact.
Thank you to our funders, supporters and collaborators for helping Voices for Healthy Kids create a path to health equity for all.
Together, we are a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.
With heart,
Nancy BrownChief Executive OfficerAmerican Heart Association
From the Voices for Healthy Kids Executive Director Lori Fresina
As Voices for Healthy Kids approaches its 10-year mark, we continue to advance policy change that improves the lives of children and families, always with equity as our North Star. If I were to name a theme for the past year, it would be “trust the process.”
We transitioned from creative reimagining to concrete, practical action. What emerged were new approaches to equity-centered grantmaking, policy development, leadership development, campaign support and our own internal hiring practices.
We have learned that meaningful change can be bumpy, and that building processes that intentionally give up power and control can be downright scary!
Our Advocacy Impact Pilot supports equity-centered, community-led policy campaigns in four cities. Residents prioritized key issues for these campaigns, including some issues in areas that were new to us. Our job was to trust the process, even when that pushed us outside our comfort zone.
We continue to make our grantmaking process more anti-racist. We created the Fair Start Index, a data tool that guides our grant dollars to communities of highest need and opportunity. Holding ourselves accountable to our equity goals requires us to be more intentional about where we want to invest while being more curious about who we want to fund. We learned that our approach was good but that it needed to be better.
Amid hyper-partisanship, some advocates in conservative jurisdictions have felt caught between their commitment to equity and their desire to pass legislation, even if that means staying silent on race, racism or equity. To meet the moment, Voices for Healthy Kids regularly convened a nationwide peer group of advocates working in conservative jurisdictions to problem solve, share success stories and identify needs. Together, we developed a supportive community of peers and new messaging aimed at helping advocates and decision-makers converse about substantive issues without getting caught in partisan quicksand.
As always, we are grateful for the support of our funders, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bainum Family Foundation, and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative. Thank you for making our work possible.
With each passing year, we are ever-more appreciative of our entire Voices for Healthy Kids network—our grantees, national collaborators, community-based organizations, researchers and more. We continue to learn with and from you. Thank you for the critical role each of you plays in creating equitable communities nationwide.
With respect and gratitude,
Lori FresinaExecutive DirectorVoices for Healthy Kids
By The Numbers, 2013-2022
Increasing Impact
346policy successes (as of 8/1/22)
281 millionpeople affected by Voices for Healthy Kids policy wins* **Represents population of states and/or communities impacted by policies passed. Policies must meet American Heart Association’s guidelines, which are based on science and potential population impact (as of 8/1/22).
$5.3 billionsecured in appropriations to support mission-related programs and services that address the root causes of childhood obesity and health inequities (since the start of the initiative)
Building A Movement
290campaigns funded (as of 8/1/22)
27organizations in the Strategic Advisory Committee aligning with policy priorities and centering health equity (2022 committee)
111organizations participating in Voices for Healthy Kids’ advisory committees, work groups and other collaborations (as of 8/1/22)
73,178online grassroots advocates (as of 8/1/22)
Training and Resources
22advocacy toolkits created
24national message research projects
6,101requests for skills building, planning and consultation (technical assistance)
Policy Wins Across the U.S.
Introduction
Voices for Healthy Kids strives to make every day healthier for every child. Regardless of the ZIP code in which they were born, all children should grow up with access to healthy affordable foods, safe drinking water, high-quality early childhood development and family-friendly places for physical activity.
Working around the country, Voices for Healthy Kids advances equitable policies that make the places where kids and their families live, learn and play healthier. We do this by supporting advocacy campaigns, creating visibility for issues that affect children's health, mobilizing communities, elevating science and research via communications and messaging expertise and fostering partnerships.
Our team addresses systemic inequities and racism that have marginalized or excluded many communities, including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and/or communities with children living in families with low income. We prioritize those communities experiencing the greatest inequities, working with them in true partnership to improve opportunities for health. We also ensure that funding is directed to organizations on the ground with diverse leadership engaging communities of color and those experiencing high levels of poverty and food insecurity.
Voices for Healthy Kids is improving the flow of grant funding to communities facing the greatest inequities and teaming up with community leaders and organizations that are already making progress. By trusting, supporting and investing in the people and places experiencing the greatest inequities, we can remove barriers that stand in the way of healthy, thriving children and families everywhere.
“One of the most important things that I share is the adage of nothing about us without us. If you are going to be trying to influence lawmakers, be sure to uplift the voices of those who are affected by the causes that you are an ally for. Take them with you. Make sure you have factual, relevant information. Make sure that what you are saying is exactly what will help that community, as opposed to what you think would help that community.”
—2022 Community Conversation Participant
Commitment to Racial Equity
At Voices for Healthy Kids, our vision of equity is for children and their families to be free from oppressive conditions that limit their overall quality of life and wellbeing. For us, that means combating the inequities, biases and racism in current systems and policies that have intentionally marginalized or excluded some communities. We must do everything we can to change our racist and oppressive systems.
Achieving this bold vision requires listening to, creating space for, centering and partnering with Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and/or communities with children living in families with low income. By trusting, supporting, and investing in the people and places experiencing the greatest inequities, we can help remove barriers that stand in the way of healthy, thriving children and families everywhere. Together, we are helping to build a more equitable nation.
In FY 2021 - 2022, we:
Continued our own staff training on culture change and equity in the workplace.
Funded a pilot project in Minnesota working to build equity in governance with Voices for Racial Justice.
Launched the Fair Start Index to help increase our grantmaking focus on communities experiencing the greatest disparities so that our dollars provide maximum impact.
Committed to centering equity in our regranting process to improve health outcomes.
Continued to diversify our committees, vendors and applicant pools.
Worked to ensure funding is directed to organizations with diverse leadership and staff.
Held a roundtable on equity in breastfeeding policies.
Launched the Advocacy Impact Pilot to support long-term, equity-centered local policy change that improves the health of children and their families while transferring power and building capacity.
“We’ve especially appreciated your spirit of partnership and commitment to racial equity in our interpersonal and organizational relationship.”
Voices for Healthy Kids has always fostered a multi-directional learning community that’s not just about us sharing campaign guidance, skills and technical assistance, but also about us learning from local campaigns and communities.
Our Strategic Advisory Committee (SAC) provides strategic guidance and direction to advance advocacy campaigns. SAC members explore and advance key movement-wide topics that broadly impact member organizations. In the spirit of centering community, we added several community-based organizations to the SAC this year as well as former Voices for Healthy Kids grantee organizations. Deepening understanding and commitments around health equity is a guiding priority.
This is a collaborative of more than 15 organizations representing volunteer healthcare providers across multiple disciplines of health (oral health, diabetes health, cardiovascular/medical health and obesity health) committed to lending their voices to local policy campaigns through community conversations and invited to speak with the media, at public hearings, and more.
To support Voices for Healthy Kids’ increasing focus on infant and maternal health, this year, our Healthy Leaders for Healthy Kids Workgroup created a strategy around infant and maternal health priorities that will begin implementation in the next fiscal year.
This collaborative provides an inclusive convening space for local, state, tribal and national stakeholders involved in efforts to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks and increase healthy hydration—especially among children in communities with the highest prevalence of diseases related to sugary drink consumption, most targeted by beverage companies and most likely to lack access to safe, no-cost drinking water.
Voices for Healthy Kids’ work with Indian Country began as a singular Fertile Ground grant program and has grown to include voices and perspectives that impact our policymaking and grantmaking practices. Some of the activities representing the relationships with Native American organizations and individuals to support and strengthen cultural understanding around policymaking include:
Exploring new opportunities with Francys Crevier, executive director; Catherine Dreyer, director of development; and Alejandro Bermudez, vice president of operations and programs; from the National Coalition of Urban Indian Health.
Expertise-sharing and education provided by Ahniwake Rose, National Indian Health Board, through technical assistance for policy campaigns and initiative priorities.
Strengthening and co-creating opportunities with multiple Indian Country partners, such as NB3 Foundation, who provided conference presentations, webinar opportunities and informed resource development.
Pearl Walker-Swaney, certified doula and breastfeeding counselor, and Cheri Nemec of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council in Wisconsin and chair of the National Indian and Native American WIC Coalition, providing expertise around maternal health in Native American communities.
Our Approach to Research
The American Heart Association’s trusted science is a critical pillar of Voices for Healthy Kids’ policy change efforts, advancing the evidence base for new and existing policies and providing robust, research-based resources and materials to campaigns.
Recognizing gaps in our lived experiences of racial and socioeconomic inequities, Voices for Healthy Kids updated our research network to reflect the needs of the communities we work with. The Policy Research Advisory Group is a small group of equity-focused research experts who inform the research activities at Voices for Healthy Kids. They help us see the blind spots in our research approach, design, and methods and address them, while guiding us to get closer to the root causes of inequities and be more anti-racist in our policy agenda.
Voices for Healthy Kids continuously develops new strategies to address systemic racism and inequities. This year we worked diligently to develop and launch the Fair Start Index to ensure we are directing our resources to places with the greatest need. The Fair Start Index brings together many different data points to get an overall summary measure of communities experiencing the greatest inequities. We use the Fair Start Index as one way to evaluate where our work can have the greatest impact on disparities.
Our Innovation, Equity, and Exploration Workgroups explore policy questions to advance advocacy innovation and health equity, look at how policy issues overlap, and support dialogue on social, demographic, policy, and other trends related to our priorities. This year, the workgroups are focused on:
Exploring and identifying core strategies to advance racial equity in the policymaking process that will strengthen the ability to overcome historic and present-day intentional marginalization and alienation of government systems entrenched in system racism, led by Empower DC.
Exploring state and local policies and practices that address sugary drink counter-marketing and dissect the landscape of sugary drinks, healthy hydration, water access and racial equity in the Atlanta Metro area, led by Partnership for Southern Equity.
Exploring and better understanding state and local policies and practices supporting implementation of healthy hydration initiatives with early care and education environments, led by Voices for Georgia’s Children.
How We Work
Voices for Healthy Kids is committed to helping our partners and grantees build their advocacy skills as they work to improve the health of children in communities across the country.
In the past, our team traveled around the country convening advocates and allies for trainings and conferences, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have shifted to hosting them virtually, which has allowed us to be more inclusive and reach more people. In 2021-22, we continued our successful series of online trainings, which included training campaign leaders, their coalition partners, members and supporters.
Highlights from the year include hosting trainings, providing technical assistance and creating resources to support advocates. Voices for Healthy Kids:
Streamlined the technical assistance request process for grantees.
Hosted three virtual equity-focused trainings with more than 100 participants, including current and past grantees.
Hosted a Summit in April—our first in-person Summit since 2019—with 80 participants from 38 organizations. Under the theme “The Power of Community,” we focused on listening to and learning from people in communities.
Hosted a preemption convening with more than 130 advocates.
Published the Mothers, Infants and Toddlers Fast Facts in English and Spanish.
Working with the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, continued supporting a training series for two cohorts of Women’s Policy Institute Fellows, community-based leaders who are working to shape and implement policies that address the needs of women across the state. We helped train the Fellows in all aspects of advocacy, including campaign planning, media outreach, messaging, grassroots organizing and social media.
Addressed the role of advocacy in dealing with the threat of preemption at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association and engaged in a four-day social media preemption campaign that yielded more than 13,000 impressions.
Working with the National Collaboration for Infants and Toddlers, launched our virtual Grassroots Community of Practice, which features topics on equity, media advocacy and using local data.
“I appreciated the attention to detail in creating diverse sessions, and especially the inclusion of walking tours and movement opportunities. I met so many wonderful people, and it has strengthened connections both within our grant collaboration team while also building new relationships across the country.”
—Summit Attendee
“The training provided lots of information, and ALSO provided opportunities to use the information in small-group settings. Especially when training is virtual, having breakout sessions to practice ideas and talk in small groups makes a huge difference in how much of the material I was able to integrate and hopefully will be able to use.”
—Virtual Training Attendee
Policy Priorities
Voices for Healthy Kids focuses our efforts on the places that have been disinvested in and systematically oppressed for far too long: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and/or communities with children living in families with low income. We advance equitable policies that make the places where kids and their families live, learn and play healthier. These policies make healthier options more accessible and affordable for all families. We work to:
Make healthy, affordable food easily available.
Decrease the consumption of sugary beverages.
Ensure early childhood programs and services are accessible and of high quality for families with low incomes.
Prevent states and special interests or industry from blocking local actions that promote health, wellbeing and equity.
Improve schools’ health and wellness policies and practices.
Increase access to safe, no-cost drinking water in schools and communities.
Direct public dollars toward family economic support.
“The wrap-around support and deep understanding of how policy advocacy actually works is exceptional.”
—2022 Grantee
Without access to affordable healthy food and drinks, a nutritious diet and good health are out of reach. We support state, local and tribal policies that increase access to healthy food and beverages, make it easier to eat healthy and drive industry innovation to improve the food and drinks we all need. We also drive for innovation. Voices for Healthy Kids team members Katie Bishop Kendrick and Stephanie Scarmo were authors on the policy statement, Strengthening US Food Policies and Programs to Promote Equity in Nutrition Security, which was published in the Association’s flagship journal Circulation and set a new agenda to help make healthy foods within reach for all.
This past year, Voices for Healthy Kids supported advocates in Illinois and the cities of New Orleans, Louisiana; St. Louis and Golden City, Missouri; Longmont, Colorado; and Youngstown, Ohio—all of which passed laws making healthy beverage options the default for kids’ restaurant meals.
We worked with advocates across the country to convince cities, counties and states to increase their investments in making healthy foods affordable to families. Rhode Island, for example, approved an $11.5 million appropriation to fund a Retail SNAP Incentives Pilot Program that will provide a discount on fresh fruits and vegetables at grocery stores. For the first time, Virginia is funding SNAP incentives with $2 million over two years to increase nutritional access through farmers markets and community food retailers. In Georgia, Fulton County voted to invest in expanding Georgia Fresh for Less, a program that matches the money SNAP participants spend on locally grown produce, dollar for dollar. And California’s Los Angeles County okayed a $2 million appropriation to fund a program that subsidizes the purchase of healthy foods at farmers markets.
Finally, with support from Voices for Healthy Kids, the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy hosted a tour of a Double Up Oklahoma (DUO) participating grocery store where members of the State Senate learned about the benefits of SNAP Incentives from grocers, farmers and participants. Afterward, the lawmakers teamed up to sponsor and ultimately pass legislation that secured $1.1 million in funding for the program, helping families with low incomes purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.
The more frequently infants and toddlers can be in healthy and supportive learning environments, the more likely they will be emotionally, mentally and physically healthy and thrive, and of course, their parents will be supported. We fund and support early childhood development opportunities at the state and local levels, with a focus on children growing up in communities historically underserved or even excluded from economic opportunity.
This year, we worked with advocates in Vermont to win the approval of $6 million in appropriations over three years for early childhood education reforms such as expanding eligibility to more families and reducing copays and stabilizing and strengthening the early child care and education workforce. Our grantmaking and support also helped extend access to child care and address workforce shortages in Delaware, with a funding increase of more than $66 million. In Alabama, we helped secure a $17.8 million appropriation to promote better child care quality. In New Orleans, a rapid response grant helped support the passage of policy that will expand New Orleans City Seats, a successful program that provides free, high-quality early childhood care and education to low-income families with young children and allows New Orleans’ economy and workforce to thrive.
Voices for Healthy Kids also provides trainings and resources for advocates for early childhood programs. This year, Dr. Stephanie Scarmo presented “Healthy Kids, Healthy Future: Advancing Equity in Early Childhood” at a conference hosted by Nemours Children's Health and Healthy Eating Research at Duke University.
“I want no different for your child than I want for my child. It’s pretty simple, so whatever they have in thriving, majority communities, that’s what we want in our community.”
—Community Conversation Participant
Local governments are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of the people in their communities by reflecting local context and values. Depending on the community, that could mean passing local laws to improve quality of life through sugary drink taxes, paid sick leave, smoke-free worksites, limited use of plastic bags or equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
Voices for Healthy Kids supports coalitions that defend local governments’ ability to promote health, wellbeing and equity against efforts that would allow the state to prevent local action. This kind of state and corporate interference is often referred to as preemption. Allyson Frazier co-authored an article in Circulation, Preemption: A Threat to Building Healthy, Equitable Communities, highlighting the threat of preemption faced by communities around the country.
This past year, Voices for Healthy Kids supported advocates who defeated a bill that would have preempted local authority of towns and cities to pass regulations or ordinances on public health issues, and advocates who defeated bills that would have preempted local ordinances on tobacco in Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia. For example, with Voices for Healthy Kids’ support for the sixth year, in South Carolina, H 3681 was defeated in collaboration with ACS CAN, American Lung Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and others. In the final three weeks, AHA's paid media campaign and quick mobilization prevented the industry's efforts to push the bill into special order status.
“[The training] disrupted our thinking and gave us some food for thought on our approach, particularly when dealing with conservative lawmakers and decision makers.”
—Preemption Convening attendee
Children—no matter where they live or what grade they are in—benefit from physical education, healthy food and clean water. That’s why we are committed to building healthy school environments. We do this by promoting good nutrition and access to safe and appealing water at no cost in all schools, especially those that have been historically under-resourced or excluded from economic opportunity.
In July of 2021, we proudly supported the work to make California the first state to provide healthy school meals for all students, but our work has just begun. In FY 2021-22, we supported advocates in Maine, Vermont and Washington to strengthen and expand healthy school meals programs for kids. We also funded efforts in Rhode Island, West Virginia and New Hampshire, as well as Philadelphia and Oceanside, Calif., to improve free access to safe drinking water in schools and other public buildings.
And, as we are committed to creating or funding resources and research that supports advocates who are working to improve school health, this past year, Voices for Healthy Kids supported the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality in releasing a new report about lead contamination in Philadelphia public schools.
Grantmaking
At Voices for Healthy Kids, we work to ensure that our grantmaking is impactful and equitable. Our decisions are informed by data and are responsive and respectful to the needs and aspirations of communities that historically have experienced the greatest inequities. In FY 2021-22, Voices for Healthy Kids awarded 27 grants to organizations advancing racial and health equity to improve the health outcomes of children, families and communities.
This year, we engaged in an extensive grantmaking improvement process to simplify our application form and regranting procedures to create a more user-friendly experience for applicants and ensure equitable access to funding. We wanted to make clear through our language who and where we are looking to fund. Through this process, we addressed the top “pain points” identified by grant applicants who participated in a Grant Advisor survey. We are pleased with the result—and we think applicants will be as well.
In December 2021, we launched the Advocacy Impact Pilot to support long-term, equity-centered local policy change that improves the health of children and their families while transferring power and building capacity. Organizations are being funded in four locations—East Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Gulfport, Mississippi; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Charleston, South Carolina—to collectively advance policy issues identified by communities most impacted by inequities. We view this as an investment in community-led solutions to address health inequity and structural racism.
“This has been a transformative funding relationship thus far. The resources we've been given—such as budget for and relationship with an attorney whom we are encouraged to consult with on any nonprofit topic—is a game changer.”
“Thanks for being a part of this win for kids … without the resources from AHA, I am honestly not sure we would have won … the result of radical collaboration.”
“The VFHK staff was phenomenal in fostering partnerships.”
—2022 Grantees
Voices for Healthy Kids’ preemption policy fund helps protect local democracy and advance equity. The fund, backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, awards grants to organizations that protect the local right to advocate for and implement equitable policies and fight special interest groups that threaten the health and economic security of their communities.
Preemption occurs when a higher level of government supersedes the authority of a lower level of government; it is a constraint on local policymaking power. Preemption in and of itself is a neutral legal policy tool, but it can be misused as a legislative tactic to remove the regulatory power of local governments across a variety of issues. Special interest groups are using their significant resources to make sure their interests and bottom lines are protected by supporting the consolidation of power at the state level, effectively stopping local policy innovation.
Preemption is being used in aggressive ways in different political and social contexts. This past year alone, hundreds of bills were filed across the county that involved preemption. Unnecessarily limiting local control and blocking policies promoting health and equity has severe—and preventable—consequences. The consequences can be significant, and too often disproportionately affect women, people of color, low wage workers, and communities with high rates of poverty. In summary, when used aggressively, preemption perpetuates inequity.
Preemption campaign successes this year included:
Ohio, where, with the support of Voices for Healthy Kids, Equality Ohio, in collaboration with Kaleidoscope Youth Center, has been able to prevent preemption policies from passing that are aimed at harming Ohio's transgender youth, including by attempting to ban trans youth from playing sports, and by preventing trans youth and their families access to gender-affirming care. Anti-trans youth sports bills have passed in 18 states so far, and gender-affirming care bans have passed in three states so far. Success in Ohio is due to the orchestration of a broad coalition of groups who care about our transgender youth—from Ohio doctors and hospitals, to coaches and sports teams, to business leaders, parents and LGBTQ+ youth themselves.
Nebraska, where Voices for Healthy Kids’ efforts coordinating testimony, grassroots action and direct lobbying provided a strong defense for local control in protecting public health. As a result, a bill preempting localities from addressing e-cigarettes died in committee at the end of the session.
South Carolina, where, for the sixth year, a bill stripping local governments of their authority to regulate tobacco products was defeated. In the session’s final three weeks, Voices for Healthy Kids’ paid media campaign and quick mobilization prevented the industry’s efforts to push the bill into special order status.
Where We Fund
Our focus is on places where stark inequities exist. We are particularly interested in funding tribal nations, states, cities and counties experiencing the greatest health and social disparities as determined by data, but we understand that data never tells the whole story. Each community has unique strengths and challenges that aren’t fully reflected by numbers, and we welcome applicants to share community-specific information related to their own health and social disparities. In 2022, we are especially interested in applications from the following states and cities within these states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, and applications from all states and Puerto Rico are welcome.
Who We Fund
Voices for Healthy Kids works to ensure that our funding is directed to organizations with diverse leadership and staff and that grantees are from and engaging communities that historically and systemically experience disinvestment, including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and communities of families with children living with low incomes. Campaigns must support, drive and inform tribal, state or local policy change efforts that will dramatically improve the health of children who are experiencing the greatest health disparities.
How We Evaluate
In addition to prioritizing location and evaluating leadership diversity, grant applicants are evaluated based on their potential to reduce health disparities, engagement and power building in communities most impacted, experience in changing policy, and understanding of the historical context of the issues and inequities.
Special Report: Saying YES to Kids To Transform Early Child Care and Education in New Orleans
Access to high-quality early child care and education for New Orleans’ youngest preschoolers is about to increase exponentially, after voters overwhelmingly said “yes” to kids in an April 30 ballot measure.
The ballot initiative sought approval for a new property tax that’s expected to pull in $21 million annually for early childhood education, creating enrichment opportunities for an additional 1,000 infants, toddlers, and 3-year-olds. It’s believed to be the nation’s largest dedicated municipal funding of early education programming for the birth-to-3 age group—most programs target older preschoolers.
A state matching grant will double the impact, expanding the city’s early childhood education program by 2,000 seats all together. Currently, the City Seats program serves 400 children from families with low incomes.
How They Did It
The driving force behind the tax proposal victory, the “YES For NOLA Kids” campaign, included diverse groups and voices united behind a message of the importance of early childhood education to New Orleans families, workers and businesses. Voices For Healthy Kids supported with a grant to help get it over the finish line.
“No one entity did this; we did this together,” said Libbie Sonnier, Ph.D., executive director of the Louisiana Policy Institute (LPI). “We were all singing the same note from the same page of the same songbook.”
LPI’s research on the economic impacts of Louisiana’s lack of child care, combined with its public opinion polling, proved critical to the campaign’s success. The on-the-ground grassroots work was carried out by the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice, a coalition of community-based advocacy, education and policy groups across Louisiana.
“They walked the streets,” Sonnier said. “They educated and spent time with people to help them understand what the tax proposition would do and how it would help the community.”
Hamilton Simons-Jones, a consultant who helped lead the campaign, noted that the main challenge to the initiative was not so much opposition but voter apathy. The tax proposal was the only item on the ballot election, which was held not only on a Saturday but on the first day of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
“We knew turnout would be low,” Simons-Jones said. “But we also knew that if we could mobilize Black and Brown women, we could win.” The Coalition turned to For Providers, By Providers, a New Orleans-based advocacy group of Black child care workers, to enlist the support of women of color.
Polling by LPI also showed the importance of getting white women ages 30 to 50 out to vote. “We got them the facts,” Sonnier said. “The polling helped us focus our efforts.”
This was not the first attempt to get dedicated funding for early childhood education through a ballot measure. A 2020 initiative sought a much smaller allocation—$1.5 million—that would have created an additional 100 early education seats while cutting city library funding by 40 percent. That proposition failed.
By asking for a lot more money to serve many more children, the stakes increased from being “a marginal improvement to a transformative improvement,” Simons-Jones said. “It gave people something to say ‘yes’ to.”
This time around, advocates spent a lot of time up front educating elected officials and business leaders. They made the case that early child care and education is good for businesses, which had been struggling to get workers, and an investment in public safety and crime prevention. They also stressed the accountability of the City Seats programs, its record of success and its broad support.
The Voices for Healthy Kids grant “made a huge difference,” Simons-Jones said. “It allowed us to implement our entire plan, including mailers, campaign videos and polling. It really helped us turn the corner on voter awareness.”
Sonnier agreed. “You couldn’t turn around anywhere without seeing YES For NOLA Kids,” she said, likening the effect to “surround sound.”
Ben Schmauss, policy engagement manager for Voices for Healthy Kids, said that in supporting the LPI, the Power Coalition and its partners, “We funded the right group to do the right work at the right time—and got out of the way.”
It’s an example, he said, of the power of investing in groups that are closest to the needs of their communities. “We’re trying to create lasting change by investing in, sharing power and decision making and building capacity with communities that historically have lacked investment.”
Grantees
AHA Minnesota
AHA Ohio
AHA South Carolina
BREADA
Center for Planning Excellence
Florida Impact to End Hunger
Florida Rising Together (Statewide Alignment Group)
Georgians for a Healthy Future
Hunger Action Los Angeles
Hunger Free Colorado
ImpactTulsa
In-Advance
Magnolia Medical Foundation
Make the Road Nevada, a project of Make the Road States, Inc.
NAACP Maryland State Conference
New Mexico Voices for Children
Policy Institute for the Children of Louisiana
Rodel
The Suquamish Foundation
The Walls Project
Three O'clock Project
Urban Health Partnerships, Incorporated
Voices for Racial Justice
WEPOWER
Wholesome Wave
YWCA Greater Charleston
Introduction
Voices for Healthy Kids strives to make every day healthier for every child. Regardless of the ZIP code in which they were born, all children should grow up with access to healthy affordable foods, safe drinking water, high-quality early childhood development and family-friendly places for physical activity.
Working around the country, Voices for Healthy Kids advances equitable policies that make the places where kids and their families live, learn and play healthier. We do this by supporting advocacy campaigns, creating visibility for issues that affect children's health, mobilizing communities, elevating science and research via communications and messaging expertise and fostering partnerships.
Our team addresses systemic inequities and racism that have marginalized or excluded many communities, including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and/or communities with children living in families with low income. We prioritize those communities experiencing the greatest inequities, working with them in true partnership to improve opportunities for health. We also ensure that funding is directed to organizations on the ground with diverse leadership engaging communities of color and those experiencing high levels of poverty and food insecurity.
Voices for Healthy Kids is improving the flow of grant funding to communities facing the greatest inequities and teaming up with community leaders and organizations that are already making progress. By trusting, supporting and investing in the people and places experiencing the greatest inequities, we can remove barriers that stand in the way of healthy, thriving children and families everywhere.
“One of the most important things that I share is the adage of nothing about us without us. If you are going to be trying to influence lawmakers, be sure to uplift the voices of those who are affected by the causes that you are an ally for. Take them with you. Make sure you have factual, relevant information. Make sure that what you are saying is exactly what will help that community, as opposed to what you think would help that community.”
—2022 Community Conversation Participant
Commitment to Racial Equity
At Voices for Healthy Kids, our vision of equity is for children and their families to be free from oppressive conditions that limit their overall quality of life and wellbeing. For us, that means combating the inequities, biases and racism in current systems and policies that have intentionally marginalized or excluded some communities. We must do everything we can to change our racist and oppressive systems.
Achieving this bold vision requires listening to, creating space for, centering and partnering with Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and/or communities with children living in families with low income. By trusting, supporting, and investing in the people and places experiencing the greatest inequities, we can help remove barriers that stand in the way of healthy, thriving children and families everywhere. Together, we are helping to build a more equitable nation.
In FY 2021 - 2022, we:
Continued our own staff training on culture change and equity in the workplace.
Funded a pilot project in Minnesota working to build equity in governance with Voices for Racial Justice.
Launched the Fair Start Index to help increase our grantmaking focus on communities experiencing the greatest disparities so that our dollars provide maximum impact.
Committed to centering equity in our regranting process to improve health outcomes.
Continued to diversify our committees, vendors and applicant pools.
Worked to ensure funding is directed to organizations with diverse leadership and staff.
Held a roundtable on equity in breastfeeding policies.
Launched the Advocacy Impact Pilot to support long-term, equity-centered local policy change that improves the health of children and their families while transferring power and building capacity.
“We’ve especially appreciated your spirit of partnership and commitment to racial equity in our interpersonal and organizational relationship.”
Voices for Healthy Kids has always fostered a multi-directional learning community that’s not just about us sharing campaign guidance, skills and technical assistance, but also about us learning from local campaigns and communities.
Our Strategic Advisory Committee (SAC) provides strategic guidance and direction to advance advocacy campaigns. SAC members explore and advance key movement-wide topics that broadly impact member organizations. In the spirit of centering community, we added several community-based organizations to the SAC this year as well as former Voices for Healthy Kids grantee organizations. Deepening understanding and commitments around health equity is a guiding priority.
This is a collaborative of more than 15 organizations representing volunteer healthcare providers across multiple disciplines of health (oral health, diabetes health, cardiovascular/medical health and obesity health) committed to lending their voices to local policy campaigns through community conversations and invited to speak with the media, at public hearings, and more.
To support Voices for Healthy Kids’ increasing focus on infant and maternal health, this year, our Healthy Leaders for Healthy Kids Workgroup created a strategy around infant and maternal health priorities that will begin implementation in the next fiscal year.
This collaborative provides an inclusive convening space for local, state, tribal and national stakeholders involved in efforts to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks and increase healthy hydration—especially among children in communities with the highest prevalence of diseases related to sugary drink consumption, most targeted by beverage companies and most likely to lack access to safe, no-cost drinking water.
Voices for Healthy Kids’ work with Indian Country began as a singular Fertile Ground grant program and has grown to include voices and perspectives that impact our policymaking and grantmaking practices. Some of the activities representing the relationships with Native American organizations and individuals to support and strengthen cultural understanding around policymaking include:
Exploring new opportunities with Francys Crevier, executive director; Catherine Dreyer, director of development; and Alejandro Bermudez, vice president of operations and programs; from the National Coalition of Urban Indian Health.
Expertise-sharing and education provided by Ahniwake Rose, National Indian Health Board, through technical assistance for policy campaigns and initiative priorities.
Strengthening and co-creating opportunities with multiple Indian Country partners, such as NB3 Foundation, who provided conference presentations, webinar opportunities and informed resource development.
Pearl Walker-Swaney, certified doula and breastfeeding counselor, and Cheri Nemec of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council in Wisconsin and chair of the National Indian and Native American WIC Coalition, providing expertise around maternal health in Native American communities.
Our Approach to Research
The American Heart Association’s trusted science is a critical pillar of Voices for Healthy Kids’ policy change efforts, advancing the evidence base for new and existing policies and providing robust, research-based resources and materials to campaigns.
Recognizing gaps in our lived experiences of racial and socioeconomic inequities, Voices for Healthy Kids updated our research network to reflect the needs of the communities we work with. The Policy Research Advisory Group is a small group of equity-focused research experts who inform the research activities at Voices for Healthy Kids. They help us see the blind spots in our research approach, design, and methods and address them, while guiding us to get closer to the root causes of inequities and be more anti-racist in our policy agenda.
Voices for Healthy Kids continuously develops new strategies to address systemic racism and inequities. This year we worked diligently to develop and launch the Fair Start Index to ensure we are directing our resources to places with the greatest need. The Fair Start Index brings together many different data points to get an overall summary measure of communities experiencing the greatest inequities. We use the Fair Start Index as one way to evaluate where our work can have the greatest impact on disparities.
Our Innovation, Equity, and Exploration Workgroups explore policy questions to advance advocacy innovation and health equity, look at how policy issues overlap, and support dialogue on social, demographic, policy, and other trends related to our priorities. This year, the workgroups are focused on:
Exploring and identifying core strategies to advance racial equity in the policymaking process that will strengthen the ability to overcome historic and present-day intentional marginalization and alienation of government systems entrenched in system racism, led by Empower DC.
Exploring state and local policies and practices that address sugary drink counter-marketing and dissect the landscape of sugary drinks, healthy hydration, water access and racial equity in the Atlanta Metro area, led by Partnership for Southern Equity.
Exploring and better understanding state and local policies and practices supporting implementation of healthy hydration initiatives with early care and education environments, led by Voices for Georgia’s Children.
How We Work
Voices for Healthy Kids is committed to helping our partners and grantees build their advocacy skills as they work to improve the health of children in communities across the country.
In the past, our team traveled around the country convening advocates and allies for trainings and conferences, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have shifted to hosting them virtually, which has allowed us to be more inclusive and reach more people. In 2021-22, we continued our successful series of online trainings, which included training campaign leaders, their coalition partners, members and supporters.
Highlights from the year include hosting trainings, providing technical assistance and creating resources to support advocates. Voices for Healthy Kids:
Streamlined the technical assistance request process for grantees.
Hosted three virtual equity-focused trainings with more than 100 participants, including current and past grantees.
Hosted a Summit in April—our first in-person Summit since 2019—with 80 participants from 38 organizations. Under the theme “The Power of Community,” we focused on listening to and learning from people in communities.
Hosted a preemption convening with more than 130 advocates.
Published the Mothers, Infants and Toddlers Fast Facts in English and Spanish.
Working with the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, continued supporting a training series for two cohorts of Women’s Policy Institute Fellows, community-based leaders who are working to shape and implement policies that address the needs of women across the state. We helped train the Fellows in all aspects of advocacy, including campaign planning, media outreach, messaging, grassroots organizing and social media.
Addressed the role of advocacy in dealing with the threat of preemption at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association and engaged in a four-day social media preemption campaign that yielded more than 13,000 impressions.
Working with the National Collaboration for Infants and Toddlers, launched our virtual Grassroots Community of Practice, which features topics on equity, media advocacy and using local data.
“I appreciated the attention to detail in creating diverse sessions, and especially the inclusion of walking tours and movement opportunities. I met so many wonderful people, and it has strengthened connections both within our grant collaboration team while also building new relationships across the country.”
—Summit Attendee
“The training provided lots of information, and ALSO provided opportunities to use the information in small-group settings. Especially when training is virtual, having breakout sessions to practice ideas and talk in small groups makes a huge difference in how much of the material I was able to integrate and hopefully will be able to use.”
—Virtual Training Attendee
Policy Priorities
Voices for Healthy Kids focuses our efforts on the places that have been disinvested in and systematically oppressed for far too long: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and/or communities with children living in families with low income. We advance equitable policies that make the places where kids and their families live, learn and play healthier. These policies make healthier options more accessible and affordable for all families. We work to:
Make healthy, affordable food easily available.
Decrease the consumption of sugary beverages.
Ensure early childhood programs and services are accessible and of high quality for families with low incomes.
Prevent states and special interests or industry from blocking local actions that promote health, wellbeing and equity.
Improve schools’ health and wellness policies and practices.
Increase access to safe, no-cost drinking water in schools and communities.
Direct public dollars toward family economic support.
“The wrap-around support and deep understanding of how policy advocacy actually works is exceptional.”
—2022 Grantee
Without access to affordable healthy food and drinks, a nutritious diet and good health are out of reach. We support state, local and tribal policies that increase access to healthy food and beverages, make it easier to eat healthy and drive industry innovation to improve the food and drinks we all need. We also drive for innovation. Voices for Healthy Kids team members Katie Bishop Kendrick and Stephanie Scarmo were authors on the policy statement, Strengthening US Food Policies and Programs to Promote Equity in Nutrition Security, which was published in the Association’s flagship journal Circulation and set a new agenda to help make healthy foods within reach for all.
This past year, Voices for Healthy Kids supported advocates in Illinois and the cities of New Orleans, Louisiana; St. Louis and Golden City, Missouri; Longmont, Colorado; and Youngstown, Ohio—all of which passed laws making healthy beverage options the default for kids’ restaurant meals.
We worked with advocates across the country to convince cities, counties and states to increase their investments in making healthy foods affordable to families. Rhode Island, for example, approved an $11.5 million appropriation to fund a Retail SNAP Incentives Pilot Program that will provide a discount on fresh fruits and vegetables at grocery stores. For the first time, Virginia is funding SNAP incentives with $2 million over two years to increase nutritional access through farmers markets and community food retailers. In Georgia, Fulton County voted to invest in expanding Georgia Fresh for Less, a program that matches the money SNAP participants spend on locally grown produce, dollar for dollar. And California’s Los Angeles County okayed a $2 million appropriation to fund a program that subsidizes the purchase of healthy foods at farmers markets.
Finally, with support from Voices for Healthy Kids, the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy hosted a tour of a Double Up Oklahoma (DUO) participating grocery store where members of the State Senate learned about the benefits of SNAP Incentives from grocers, farmers and participants. Afterward, the lawmakers teamed up to sponsor and ultimately pass legislation that secured $1.1 million in funding for the program, helping families with low incomes purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.
The more frequently infants and toddlers can be in healthy and supportive learning environments, the more likely they will be emotionally, mentally and physically healthy and thrive, and of course, their parents will be supported. We fund and support early childhood development opportunities at the state and local levels, with a focus on children growing up in communities historically underserved or even excluded from economic opportunity.
This year, we worked with advocates in Vermont to win the approval of $6 million in appropriations over three years for early childhood education reforms such as expanding eligibility to more families and reducing copays and stabilizing and strengthening the early child care and education workforce. Our grantmaking and support also helped extend access to child care and address workforce shortages in Delaware, with a funding increase of more than $66 million. In Alabama, we helped secure a $17.8 million appropriation to promote better child care quality. In New Orleans, a rapid response grant helped support the passage of policy that will expand New Orleans City Seats, a successful program that provides free, high-quality early childhood care and education to low-income families with young children and allows New Orleans’ economy and workforce to thrive.
Voices for Healthy Kids also provides trainings and resources for advocates for early childhood programs. This year, Dr. Stephanie Scarmo presented “Healthy Kids, Healthy Future: Advancing Equity in Early Childhood” at a conference hosted by Nemours Children's Health and Healthy Eating Research at Duke University.
“I want no different for your child than I want for my child. It’s pretty simple, so whatever they have in thriving, majority communities, that’s what we want in our community.”
—Community Conversation Participant
Local governments are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of the people in their communities by reflecting local context and values. Depending on the community, that could mean passing local laws to improve quality of life through sugary drink taxes, paid sick leave, smoke-free worksites, limited use of plastic bags or equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
Voices for Healthy Kids supports coalitions that defend local governments’ ability to promote health, wellbeing and equity against efforts that would allow the state to prevent local action. This kind of state and corporate interference is often referred to as preemption. Allyson Frazier co-authored an article in Circulation, Preemption: A Threat to Building Healthy, Equitable Communities, highlighting the threat of preemption faced by communities around the country.
This past year, Voices for Healthy Kids supported advocates who defeated a bill that would have preempted local authority of towns and cities to pass regulations or ordinances on public health issues, and advocates who defeated bills that would have preempted local ordinances on tobacco in Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia. For example, with Voices for Healthy Kids’ support for the sixth year, in South Carolina, H 3681 was defeated in collaboration with ACS CAN, American Lung Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and others. In the final three weeks, AHA's paid media campaign and quick mobilization prevented the industry's efforts to push the bill into special order status.
“[The training] disrupted our thinking and gave us some food for thought on our approach, particularly when dealing with conservative lawmakers and decision makers.”
—Preemption Convening attendee
Children—no matter where they live or what grade they are in—benefit from physical education, healthy food and clean water. That’s why we are committed to building healthy school environments. We do this by promoting good nutrition and access to safe and appealing water at no cost in all schools, especially those that have been historically under-resourced or excluded from economic opportunity.
In July of 2021, we proudly supported the work to make California the first state to provide healthy school meals for all students, but our work has just begun. In FY 2021-22, we supported advocates in Maine, Vermont and Washington to strengthen and expand healthy school meals programs for kids. We also funded efforts in Rhode Island, West Virginia and New Hampshire, as well as Philadelphia and Oceanside, Calif., to improve free access to safe drinking water in schools and other public buildings.
And, as we are committed to creating or funding resources and research that supports advocates who are working to improve school health, this past year, Voices for Healthy Kids supported the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality in releasing a new report about lead contamination in Philadelphia public schools.
Grantmaking
At Voices for Healthy Kids, we work to ensure that our grantmaking is impactful and equitable. Our decisions are informed by data and are responsive and respectful to the needs and aspirations of communities that historically have experienced the greatest inequities. In FY 2021-22, Voices for Healthy Kids awarded 27 grants to organizations advancing racial and health equity to improve the health outcomes of children, families and communities.
This year, we engaged in an extensive grantmaking improvement process to simplify our application form and regranting procedures to create a more user-friendly experience for applicants and ensure equitable access to funding. We wanted to make clear through our language who and where we are looking to fund. Through this process, we addressed the top “pain points” identified by grant applicants who participated in a Grant Advisor survey. We are pleased with the result—and we think applicants will be as well.
In December 2021, we launched the Advocacy Impact Pilot to support long-term, equity-centered local policy change that improves the health of children and their families while transferring power and building capacity. Organizations are being funded in four locations—East Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Gulfport, Mississippi; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Charleston, South Carolina—to collectively advance policy issues identified by communities most impacted by inequities. We view this as an investment in community-led solutions to address health inequity and structural racism.
“This has been a transformative funding relationship thus far. The resources we've been given—such as budget for and relationship with an attorney whom we are encouraged to consult with on any nonprofit topic—is a game changer.”
“Thanks for being a part of this win for kids … without the resources from AHA, I am honestly not sure we would have won … the result of radical collaboration.”
“The VFHK staff was phenomenal in fostering partnerships.”
—2022 Grantees
Voices for Healthy Kids’ preemption policy fund helps protect local democracy and advance equity. The fund, backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, awards grants to organizations that protect the local right to advocate for and implement equitable policies and fight special interest groups that threaten the health and economic security of their communities.
Preemption occurs when a higher level of government supersedes the authority of a lower level of government; it is a constraint on local policymaking power. Preemption in and of itself is a neutral legal policy tool, but it can be misused as a legislative tactic to remove the regulatory power of local governments across a variety of issues. Special interest groups are using their significant resources to make sure their interests and bottom lines are protected by supporting the consolidation of power at the state level, effectively stopping local policy innovation.
Preemption is being used in aggressive ways in different political and social contexts. This past year alone, hundreds of bills were filed across the county that involved preemption. Unnecessarily limiting local control and blocking policies promoting health and equity has severe—and preventable—consequences. The consequences can be significant, and too often disproportionately affect women, people of color, low wage workers, and communities with high rates of poverty. In summary, when used aggressively, preemption perpetuates inequity.
Preemption campaign successes this year included:
Ohio, where, with the support of Voices for Healthy Kids, Equality Ohio, in collaboration with Kaleidoscope Youth Center, has been able to prevent preemption policies from passing that are aimed at harming Ohio's transgender youth, including by attempting to ban trans youth from playing sports, and by preventing trans youth and their families access to gender-affirming care. Anti-trans youth sports bills have passed in 18 states so far, and gender-affirming care bans have passed in three states so far. Success in Ohio is due to the orchestration of a broad coalition of groups who care about our transgender youth—from Ohio doctors and hospitals, to coaches and sports teams, to business leaders, parents and LGBTQ+ youth themselves.
Nebraska, where Voices for Healthy Kids’ efforts coordinating testimony, grassroots action and direct lobbying provided a strong defense for local control in protecting public health. As a result, a bill preempting localities from addressing e-cigarettes died in committee at the end of the session.
South Carolina, where, for the sixth year, a bill stripping local governments of their authority to regulate tobacco products was defeated. In the session’s final three weeks, Voices for Healthy Kids’ paid media campaign and quick mobilization prevented the industry’s efforts to push the bill into special order status.
Where We Fund
Our focus is on places where stark inequities exist. We are particularly interested in funding tribal nations, states, cities and counties experiencing the greatest health and social disparities as determined by data, but we understand that data never tells the whole story. Each community has unique strengths and challenges that aren’t fully reflected by numbers, and we welcome applicants to share community-specific information related to their own health and social disparities. In 2022, we are especially interested in applications from the following states and cities within these states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, and applications from all states and Puerto Rico are welcome.
Who We Fund
Voices for Healthy Kids works to ensure that our funding is directed to organizations with diverse leadership and staff and that grantees are from and engaging communities that historically and systemically experience disinvestment, including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/a, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and communities of families with children living with low incomes. Campaigns must support, drive and inform tribal, state or local policy change efforts that will dramatically improve the health of children who are experiencing the greatest health disparities.
How We Evaluate
In addition to prioritizing location and evaluating leadership diversity, grant applicants are evaluated based on their potential to reduce health disparities, engagement and power building in communities most impacted, experience in changing policy, and understanding of the historical context of the issues and inequities.
Special Report: Saying YES to Kids To Transform Early Child Care and Education in New Orleans
Access to high-quality early child care and education for New Orleans’ youngest preschoolers is about to increase exponentially, after voters overwhelmingly said “yes” to kids in an April 30 ballot measure.
The ballot initiative sought approval for a new property tax that’s expected to pull in $21 million annually for early childhood education, creating enrichment opportunities for an additional 1,000 infants, toddlers, and 3-year-olds. It’s believed to be the nation’s largest dedicated municipal funding of early education programming for the birth-to-3 age group—most programs target older preschoolers.
A state matching grant will double the impact, expanding the city’s early childhood education program by 2,000 seats all together. Currently, the City Seats program serves 400 children from families with low incomes.
How They Did It
The driving force behind the tax proposal victory, the “YES For NOLA Kids” campaign, included diverse groups and voices united behind a message of the importance of early childhood education to New Orleans families, workers and businesses. Voices For Healthy Kids supported with a grant to help get it over the finish line.
“No one entity did this; we did this together,” said Libbie Sonnier, Ph.D., executive director of the Louisiana Policy Institute (LPI). “We were all singing the same note from the same page of the same songbook.”
LPI’s research on the economic impacts of Louisiana’s lack of child care, combined with its public opinion polling, proved critical to the campaign’s success. The on-the-ground grassroots work was carried out by the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice, a coalition of community-based advocacy, education and policy groups across Louisiana.
“They walked the streets,” Sonnier said. “They educated and spent time with people to help them understand what the tax proposition would do and how it would help the community.”
Hamilton Simons-Jones, a consultant who helped lead the campaign, noted that the main challenge to the initiative was not so much opposition but voter apathy. The tax proposal was the only item on the ballot election, which was held not only on a Saturday but on the first day of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
“We knew turnout would be low,” Simons-Jones said. “But we also knew that if we could mobilize Black and Brown women, we could win.” The Coalition turned to For Providers, By Providers, a New Orleans-based advocacy group of Black child care workers, to enlist the support of women of color.
Polling by LPI also showed the importance of getting white women ages 30 to 50 out to vote. “We got them the facts,” Sonnier said. “The polling helped us focus our efforts.”
This was not the first attempt to get dedicated funding for early childhood education through a ballot measure. A 2020 initiative sought a much smaller allocation—$1.5 million—that would have created an additional 100 early education seats while cutting city library funding by 40 percent. That proposition failed.
By asking for a lot more money to serve many more children, the stakes increased from being “a marginal improvement to a transformative improvement,” Simons-Jones said. “It gave people something to say ‘yes’ to.”
This time around, advocates spent a lot of time up front educating elected officials and business leaders. They made the case that early child care and education is good for businesses, which had been struggling to get workers, and an investment in public safety and crime prevention. They also stressed the accountability of the City Seats programs, its record of success and its broad support.
The Voices for Healthy Kids grant “made a huge difference,” Simons-Jones said. “It allowed us to implement our entire plan, including mailers, campaign videos and polling. It really helped us turn the corner on voter awareness.”
Sonnier agreed. “You couldn’t turn around anywhere without seeing YES For NOLA Kids,” she said, likening the effect to “surround sound.”
Ben Schmauss, policy engagement manager for Voices for Healthy Kids, said that in supporting the LPI, the Power Coalition and its partners, “We funded the right group to do the right work at the right time—and got out of the way.”
It’s an example, he said, of the power of investing in groups that are closest to the needs of their communities. “We’re trying to create lasting change by investing in, sharing power and decision making and building capacity with communities that historically have lacked investment.”
Grantees
AHA Minnesota
AHA Ohio
AHA South Carolina
BREADA
Center for Planning Excellence
Florida Impact to End Hunger
Florida Rising Together (Statewide Alignment Group)
Georgians for a Healthy Future
Hunger Action Los Angeles
Hunger Free Colorado
ImpactTulsa
In-Advance
Magnolia Medical Foundation
Make the Road Nevada, a project of Make the Road States, Inc.
NAACP Maryland State Conference
New Mexico Voices for Children
Policy Institute for the Children of Louisiana
Rodel
The Suquamish Foundation
The Walls Project
Three O'clock Project
Urban Health Partnerships, Incorporated
Voices for Racial Justice
WEPOWER
Wholesome Wave
YWCA Greater Charleston
This link is provided for convenience only and is not an endorsement of either the linked-to entity or any product or service.
Nancy Brown Chief Executive Officer American Heart Association 
Lori Fresina Executive Director Voices for Healthy Kids