What We Do

The First Five Years Fund’s goal is to expand high-quality early learning services to one million additional children from birth to age five, with half of that expansion serving infants, toddlers and their families.

In particular, the First Five Years Fund seeks to garner – through public education, federal advocacy and coordinated outreach – increased support for early learning activities that are:

• Integrated from birth to age five, with special focus on infants and toddlers;
• High-quality and comprehensive in scope; and
• Focused first on serving those children most at-risk.

"Early learning is one of the smartest public investments that we can make. Children shouldn’t be playing catch-up when they enter kindergarten, and yet so many do. This emphasis on early learning services for babies and toddlers is due to the fact that by the time a child turns three, a majority of their brain growth has already occurred. If we want greater school success later and a better-skilled workforce, we need to ensure the proper development of our most at-risk children at these earliest ages. Our goal then, is to support high-quality learning programs, such as Early Head Start, followed by preschool, for these earliest learners so that even the most at-risk children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn."

Cornelia Grumman, Executive Director of the First Five Years Fund