BOSTON—January 20, 2026—The Bridgespan Group today released Investing in Our Future: Critical Ways Philanthropy Can Help Every Young Child and Family Thrive, a new guide offering clear, field-tested guidance for funders committed to ensuring that all children and families flourish in the earliest years. Funded by the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, Imaginable Futures, and the WK Kellogg Foundation, the guide highlights four high-impact opportunities for philanthropic investment and reinforces growing evidence that experiences from prenatal to age five profoundly shape lifelong health, learning, and economic mobility.

A decade after Bridgespan and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative published a landmark report on early childhood philanthropy, the field has made meaningful progress. Expanded investment, new research, and deeper implementation experience have sharpened the case for renewed attention—especially from funders in adjacent domains.

“Families across the country are struggling to provide the nurturing care they most want for their youngest children,” said Katherine Kaufmann, Bridgespan partner and co-author. “Funders active in early childhood can play a catalytic role not only with their own engagement but also by introducing peers from fields such as maternal health, K–12 education, economic mobility, and housing. Broadening the coalition is essential to ensuring all families have access to needed supports.”

Drawing on empirical research and insights from nonprofit leaders, funders, and community partners, the guide highlights the foundational conditions for healthy development—nurturing relationships, stable families, quality early learning, accessible health care, and economic security—and the persistent disparities that leave many families without these supports. The guide outlines four critical areas for philanthropic investment: 

• Closing gaps in family supports, ensuring all families with young children can access evidence-based services tailored to their needs
• Nurturing community-led solutions for families with young children
• Building the chorus of supporters, cultivating broad-based support and a bench of influential champions for young children and their families
• Strengthening public investment and advancing smart policies so public systems can reliably support young children and families

The guide also showcases promising examples from across the country—from coordinated community efforts in North Carolina to national storytelling campaigns, grassroots advocacy wins, and cross-sector coalitions that have secured sustained public funding for childcare and early education.

“Lasting progress requires both long-term commitment and clear near-term milestones to evaluate and demonstrate progress along the way,” said Rebecca Brondfield, Bridgespan principal and co-author. “Flexible, trust-based funding; support for organizational capacity; and donor collaboration have emerged as core practices that enable early childhood organizations and community leaders to accelerate and sustain change.”

As a companion piece, Bridgespan has released an Early Childhood Resource Guide, offering opportunities to learn more from curated resources including on the science of early childhood development, inequities in outcomes, the economics of early investment, and programmatic and policy strategies across key issue areas. There are also five, place-based case studies that provide more detail on how philanthropy supported efforts for young children and families in those geographies.

“The early childhood field has made extraordinary strides over the past decade,” said Maggie Davies, partner at Bridgespan and co-author. “But far too many families still lack access to the supports that research—and lived experience—show make the greatest difference. Philanthropy can help close these gaps.”

Read the full report here: https://bspan.org/4r8J4HL

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About Bridgespan 

The Bridgespan Group (www.bridgespan.org) is a global nonprofit that collaborates with social change organizations, philanthropists, and impact investors to make the world more equitable and just. Bridgespan’s services include strategy consulting and advising, sourcing and diligence, and leadership team support. We take what we learn from this work and build on it with original research, identifying best practices and innovative ideas to share with the social sector. We work from locations in Boston, Delhi, Johannesburg, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, and Washington, DC.