Client Story

Monroe Smart Start is an initiative of the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County. Monroe Smart Start works to: 

• Increases high-quality early education in Monroe County
• Supports early childhood programs who want to grow their capacity
• Facilitates and promotes professional development and recognition for educators
• Promotes family engagement and community partnerships
• Connects families with programs that fit their financial capabilities
• Supports On My Way Pre-K enrollment 
• Advocates for early learning

Many early care and education providers get into the business because they love working with children – not because they dream of being a business owner. Many providers do not even think of themselves as an entrepreneur or business person. Monroe Smart Start saw an opportunity for the providers they work with to have a better understanding of business topics, specifically understanding their true cost of care, or how much it costs to provide care for each child in their program. 

The true cost of care factors include: 

• The quality of the program, the higher the quality, the more it costs to run the program.
• Operational costs such as rent, utilities, food, insurance, and administrative and program costs. 
• Staff, including professional development. 

If a provider doesn’t have a full sense of their true cost of care, they do not truly know how much income they need to run their program or plan for the future. When programs understand their true cost of care, it helps those of us who are advocating for early care and education to tell the story of what is needed!

Monroe Smart Start convenes a group of high-quality early care and education providers in Bloomington. Made up of centers, family child care homes, and ministries, the group receives benefits, like professional development, through Monroe Smart Start. Monroe Smart Start hired TCG to put together a coaching series, including helping the programs understand their true cost of care. 

First TCG provided our Breakeven Tool for Early Childhood Programs to the participants. The tool is a spreadsheet that allows programs to consider all of their income and expenses, calculating every last dollar to show the true cost of care. Once the providers had a better sense of their true cost of care, it was time to identify goals and strategies to meet them. 

During this process, it came to light that a common theme for programs individually, as well as a community, was marketing and communications. TCG provided a Marketing & Communication Assessment to help programs understand where they stand, and then a calendar/checklist to assist in scheduling out marketing activities throughout the year. In the end, the providers finished the coaching series with new knowledge and tools to help them further their goals.

TCG provided a tool for the programs to learn their true cost of care and collaborated with Monroe Smart Start to develop group coaching sessions for the providers.