IFF CEO Shares Why Community Developers Should Care about Early Education
Recently, OFN member IFF published a blog by CEO Joe Neri about why CDFIs should care more about developing early childhood education centers.
“No type of facility development in the nonprofit sector is more daunting than early learning centers,” Neri says. “They are highly regulated (as they should be), the operating margins to pay facility debt are minimal, the appraisals on the final single-purpose buildings will never be adequate, and assembling subsidy dollars is a bespoke endeavor.”
But, Neri continues, that’s no reason to shy away from the sector – in fact, it’s the very reason why “community development professionals are the best possible people to take on those challenges – because we understand the power of partnerships and the necessity of an ecosystem approach to meeting a community’s needs.”
This is the first in a new blog series by Neri that will focus on the early education sector.