How Oregon Made Child Care Facilities Funding Work—and What Comes Next
By Amanda Salliant
High-quality child care depends on the spaces where children learn, play, and grow. Safe, functional facilities are essential to expanding child care supply, yet the cost of renovating, expanding, or purchasing a facility is often one of the greatest barriers providers face.
Oregon’s Child Care Infrastructure Fund (CCIF) demonstrates how targeted facilities funding can strengthen the child care sector. Through capital grants, the program supported grantees in developing and improving child care facilities across the state. But understanding the program’s success requires more than measuring the number of slots created or square feet built- it requires listening to and learning from the grantees who experienced the process firsthand.
To better understand how the CCIF grant worked in practice, First Children’s Finance (FCF) partnered with the Department of Early Learning and Care (DELC) and Business Oregon to interview grant recipients. These conversations explored grantees’ experiences with the application process, project implementation and impact.
The interviews revealed that facilities funding created benefits far beyond physical improvements. Many grantees expanded capacity by opening new classrooms or increasing enrollment. Others described how renovated spaces improved the quality of care by creating safer, more functional learning environments.
Grantees also reported stronger business outcomes. Many shared that the grant improved their financial stability, strengthened their operational capacity, and renewed their optimism about remaining in the child care field. These findings highlight that investing in facilities also means investing in the long-term sustainability of child care businesses.
Equally important were the lessons grantees shared about implementing their projects. While participants overwhelmingly valued the funding, they also identified opportunities to improve future facilities initiatives. Common themes included making fund disbursements timelier and more predictable, extending timelines for large construction projects, strengthening support for contractor management, and aligning grant requirements with the realities of facility development.
These insights demonstrate why collecting feedback from grantees is so valuable. Administrative data can show how many projects were completed or how many child care slots were added, but it cannot fully capture the challenges grantees navigated or the supports that made projects successful. By engaging directly with grantees, policymakers and program administrators gain practical knowledge that can improve future investments and reduce barriers for providers.
The findings from the CCIF interviews reinforce several priorities for future facilities funding. Continued capital investments remain essential, along with strong partnerships that provide technical assistance throughout the development process. Supporting planning and pre-development activities, designing realistic project timelines, and incorporating provider feedback into program improvements can make future funding more effective and accessible.
As states continue searching for solutions to expand high-quality child care supply, Oregon’s experience offers an important reminder: facilities funding is about more than constructing or renovating buildings. It is about creating environments where children can thrive, helping entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses, and designing programs that reflect the realities of those doing the work. By pairing capital investments with meaningful grantee feedback, policymakers can create stronger facilities programs that expand access to high-quality child care while supporting the entrepreneurs and educators who make it possible.
