Our Mission.
Our mission is to transform the business of early care and education to both improve child outcomes and also ensure that practitioners are well-compensated and work in supportive environments. We believe that every early care and education director (center-or home-based) deserves an administrative team, that every teacher deserves guidance from an experienced pedagogical leader, and that every child deserves a skilled, reflective teacher.
We focus on shaping public policy and finance so that high quality, sustainable ECE is available for all young children in America. Central to this work is strengthening ECE businesses through: forming Shared Service Alliances, unleashing the power of business automation tools, and tracking business metrics. We believe these strategies will enable program leaders to focus on their mission, create positive work environments and growth opportunities for staff, and offer high-quality early learning services.
Our Background.
Opportunities Exchange is a nonprofit consulting group cofounded in 2009 by Louise Stoney and John Weiser. Louise, who spent many years working on ECE policy and finance, recognized that the field faced daunting fiscal and administrative issues and believed a new frame was needed to question, and subsequently reinvent, the prevailing child care business model. John, with a background in Community Development Financial Institutions and small business development in low-income communities, added new thinking to the mix. Together they began to forge a pathway that led to Shared Service Alliances in the ECE sector. In time other partners have joined the team, bringing a diverse array of skills focused on financial sustainability, data-driven decision-making, alternative staffing patterns, innovative policy and more. Most recently Opportunities Exchange has begun to partner with the technology sector as well as many leading early care and education organizations to test and scale new ideas.
Our fiscal sponsor is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), whose mission is to empower, encourage, and catalyze projects that facilitate progressive change in areas of social and environmental justice.