About the Campaign

The Campaign for Children (C4C) was formed in 2011 as early care and education and youth service providers, parents, and advocates joined forces to combat proposed reductions in these systems that would have decimated capacity and caused great harm. C4C benefits from the membership of more than 150 organizations, including advocates, civic leaders, early care and education, and after-school and summer camp providers.The C4C Steering Committee consists of Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, United Neighborhood Houses, UJA-Federation of New York, the YMCA of Greater New York, Good Shepherd Services, Children’s Aid, the Day Care Council of New York, and Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA).

Since C4C’s formation, the campaign has strived to advance policies through effective public relations, community organizing, data and policy analysis, and messaging that illustrates the profound positive impact that high-quality early care and education and youth services have on children, families, communities, and the city’s economy. Our advocacy elevates the voice of parents, youth, and direct service providers across communities.

C4C has informed transformative policy and budget victories including preventing the loss of $150 million in resources over multiple years and securing permanent, baselined appropriation of these resources; securing state resources to permit the creation of universal pre-K for all New York City four-year-olds and city resources to permit the creation of universal afterschool for all middle schoolers. Our advocacy also informed the agreement through which a multi-year investment and a path to salary parity was established for the early education workforce and led to reforms of the Birth to Five and Head Start RFPs to ensure that the actual cost of care is reimbursed in city contracts. Finally, year after year C4C advocacy has resulted in needed budget restorations to support summer camp for New York City youth.

Our Impact

The work of the campaign had an impact almost immediately.

In 2012 and 2013, the campaign saved 47,000 child care and afterschool seats from being eliminated from the city budget. In 2014, the campaign advocated for the baselining of $140 million for the early care and education and after-school systems, ending the annual New York City “budget dance” that left close to 50,000 children at risk of losing services each year.

These early victories set the foundation for the Campaign to be looked to as experts and leaders during the 2013 Mayoral race. Our impact continued into the Mayor de Blaso administration by protecting and expanding capacity in NYC’s early education, afterschool and summer systems. See a timeline of our major milestones since then:

C4C played a key role rallying support for UPK in New York City and after-school for all middle school students.
City labor contract for early education staff in 2017
Expansion of middle school after-school and summer programs, 2016-2021
City Labor agreements for certified teachers on first phase of salary parity, 2019
Revised RFP for birth to five and Head Start system, 2019 and 2020
Launch of Summer Rising program, 2020
Expansion of 3-K in every district citywide, 2021
Expanded infant and toddler care by 60,000 in communities heavily impacted by the pandemic, 2020-2021
Increased investments in child care vouchers, 2021

Meet the Member Organizations

Join the Campaign

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