Northern Lights - Issue 19 - March 2023
INSPIRATIONS ABOUT CARING FOR CHILDREN: BRIGHT LIGHTS IN LEELENAU COUNTY
by AMY LANE
Amalie Kristiansen and son Théodin at home in Northport.
At 23, Amalie Kristiansen has taken care of children nearly half her young life.
It’s her passion.
Now, it’s becoming her business, with Little Acorn Childcare in Northport.
The center, which will focus on children ages 0-3, is coming about through a unique Leelanau County initiative to increase the number of early child care businesses by helping them launch through funding, resources, and personal coaching. It’s a model that is drawing attention for innovation and, while in a pilot phase, is starting to bear fruit as providers open, assisted by multiple parties including Venture North Funding & Development.
Venture North has brought business basics to the picture, helping entrepreneurs with essential elements from creating a business plan and financial forecasting to marketing and best practices.
“It’s a key to their success,” said Patricia Soutas-Little, chair of the Leelanau Early Childhood Development Commission and co-chair of the Infant & Toddler Child Care Startup, or ITCS, initiative. “Having a business sense doesn’t necessarily accompany your interest in becoming a child care provider. If you don’t run it as a business, you’re not going to be successful and sustainable.”
Bearing Fruit: Countywide Leadership
The ITCS was born out of a grant from the statewide Early Childhood Investment Corporation to the Leelanau Early Childhood Development Commission. The $318,000 grant -- one of five in the state that the corporation gave out in 2021 in its first round of child care innovation awards -- seeded the ITCS, which is a collaborative effort spearheaded by the Leelanau Early Childhood Development Commission in partnership with the Leelanau Children’s Center and the Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation.
With the grant money, the ITCS is assisting new child care providers in licensing, education, facility upgrades and basic business needs. Of the approximately $119,000 disbursed thus far, most has gone to providers to help them with startup needs that can range from licensing, background checks, inspections and training, to remodeling, equipment, furniture and supplies, professional development and local chamber of commerce memberships. Startup costs vary but have averaged around $20,000 per provider, Soutas-Little said.
The ITCS is also setting aside about $130,000 of the grant money to help compensate providers for families that in their first year cannot afford to pay full tuition.
Kristiansen, a Northport native, had spent years taking care of children, including as a babysitter, a private nanny and in day cares. But when she became a new mom, she faced difficult decisions: Staying home with her son, or going back to work and seeing her paycheck consumed with the price of day care, if she could even find it.
Patricia Soutas-Little, chair of the Leelanau Early Childhood Development Commission and co-chair of the Infant & Toddler Child Care Startup initiative.
A Bright and Wonderful Place for Children
Then she met Soutas-Little and saw opportunity to have her own business, keep her son with her help families in the community. “And I just went for it,” Kristiansen said. “I just think it’s (child care) such a huge problem right now.”
Her location: The former Leelanau Children’s Center, owned by the village of Northport and leased to Northport Public Schools, which in turn is subleasing it to Kristiansen for $1 a year. After months of work, inside and out and with the help of more than two dozen volunteers, family members and others, Kristiansen said she has a bright, open, “wonderful” space to welcome children.
Money from the ITCS has helped with items like painting, cleaning supplies, toys, background checks, licensing costs, “just everything it takes to get things up and running. I definitely did not have the financial means to do any of that,” Kristiansen said.
The Leelanau Township Community Foundation is covering all operating costs for three years, and Venture North has helped with business planning – both through a specialized group “boot camp” developed and taught by Venture North business development manager and coach Annie Olds, and individual coaching by Venture North business consultant Betsy Evans. “It clued me in to so many things that I didn’t know were even a part of this process, and it helped tremendously to gauge where I would be when I’m open and the things I need to think about now,” Kristiansen said.
She said that while she’d been in a couple management positions in the past, she had no experience running a business and having Evans’ aid has been “amazing,” helping Kristiansen organize her thoughts and shape her business plan. Through Venture North, Kristiansen said she’s gained knowledge that’s crucial to starting up her business and seeing it succeed.
“Although money is helpful, knowledge is just as important,” she said. “And, learning how to do it the right way, and trying again, and again, and again. It gives you confidence in what you’re doing.”
She hopes to open by summer but before she can, she needs state approval of the structure of her business – a hybrid of home-based child care and day care centers. Each of those care models comes with their own set of rules – like education requirements of those leading the programs, capacity limits and staffing ratios -- and Little Acorn Childcare and some others in the works straddle elements of each model and need variances from the Michigan Child Care Licensing Bureau for some of the rules.
“We’re not technically a home-based program or a center. It is kind of a pilot program, to see if something like this will work,” Kristiansen said.
Soutas-Little said each provider operating at a non-home site will request their own variances. She said the hybrid programs are a test for not only Leelanau County but the state, arising as an alternative after the Leelanau commission found few people interested in doing child care in their homes, for a variety of reasons.
Little Acorn’s capacity is 12 and Kristiansen said she knows of some 20 families spread out between Leland, Northport and Suttons Bay that need care. While she hopes to make an impact in local child care needs and provide “a sense of security for parents and allow them to feel confident in having their children here,” she’s already looking to the future and wants to eventually accommodate more children.
“My greatest challenge is keeping up with the need for child care,” Kristiansen said.
“[The Venture North coaching] clued me in to so many things that I didn’t know were even a part of this process, and it helped tremendously to gauge where I would be when I’m open and the things I need to think about now,”
— Amalie Kristiansen, Little Acorn Childcare
Unifying for a Cause: Helping Children and Families Overcome Barriers
Venture North’s Olds said no matter the child care type – in-home, center-based or hybrid – “opening a child care center of any size is a complicated process with an even more complicated business model that may or may not cashflow. It’s incredibly important for individuals…to fully understand their costs, required credentials, licensing requirements, the network of organizations who can and should help, pricing structure, and especially how they can finance the startup.
“And while we know that demand is high for child care centers of any size, it’s important to talk through what a quality program looks like for both the children and the parents leaving the children there – they’re addressing two customer groups – and navigating that piece cannot be an afterthought when promising to offer a program that’s quality, safe and reputable.”
Venture North, a Community Development Financial Institution or CDFI, is no stranger to child care needs. The organization has helped multiple day care centers in the past, providing grants, loans and consulting. Venture North President Laura Galbraith is on the board of the Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation, where the ITCS topic arose at a board meeting and led to subsequent conversation between Galbraith and Soutas-Little.
“We recognize there is a huge shortage of providers in the region, so we wanted to offer as much assistance as possible,” Galbraith said. “Patricia and the ITCS pulled together an amazing team of experts, including pro bono accounting services from Rehmann. However, Patricia recognized these startup entities needed even more resources to be successful. Venture North offered its team of free consulting services to assist with business planning and coaching.”
Venture North’s Annie Olds and Betsy Evans have found it rewarding and effective to team up to provide support and guidance to small business start-up clients like Kristiansen.
Camping Out in Leelanau County
Early on, came the idea of a “boot camp” – a multiweek program bringing together all five people interested in starting up child care businesses. Olds, who had done similar trainings in her past position as the Michigan Small Business Development Center’s northwest regional director, set up the curriculum and was the instructor for the virtual training sessions, on topics such as business and financial planning and marketing. Evans, as a business coach, provided assistance on each week’s topic and homework assignments through an online resource available through Venture North that offers learning opportunities in a variety of business operational subjects.
Olds said it was fun to do the boot camp and it was an efficient means to work with all the participants. “As the weeks progressed, we somewhat rewrote the strategy, moving away from group to individualized learning because the entrepreneurs were at such different stages with their child care businesses,” she said.
Evans said the boot camp also provided networking opportunity, connecting the entrepreneurs with others in their situation. When the group training ended she continued to work with the participants individually, “coaching, refining their business plan, refining their cash flow projections, making sure they had everything in place so that when they went to the licensing agency and had any documentation to submit, that all was in line.”
The participants gained understanding of the need to plan, structure and even modify their businesses as needed, Evans said. And it brought focus on how to run a business, something entrepreneurs often don’t fully appreciate as a priority.
“You start a business because you have a passion for something, or you have a real opportunity,” Evans said. “Entrepreneurs, they generally don’t start a business because they love to do bookkeeping, or the necessary tasks that come along with running a business.”
She is continuing to work with individuals and said she will do so “as long as they want or need me. A client is never completely finished; we get them through whatever hurdle they need at the time. My door is always open.”
The boot camp was a first for Venture North and Galbraith said “we learned a lot with this particular group and training. We now have more capacity to offer services to communities that may not have access to subject matter experts. We never want to duplicate efforts, so we will always research the landscape of partners and organizations either involved or that should be involved. We want to draw on the strengths of each other to ensure we are delivering quality content to the participants.”
Venture North’s services were free of charge, supported by funding the CDFI receives from federal sources and philanthropy. And Galbraith sees a continuing role. “As a CDFI, assisting the underserved is our mission. We understand there is a shortage of day care providers across the 10-county region. We recognize the importance of retaining these new businesses in northern Michigan and what they provide families and employers,” she said.
The Child Care Threat to Employers and Employees
Galbraith said lack of day care “is one of the top three challenges employers face across the region,” the other two being talent and affordable housing.
As businesses grow and needs develop, Venture North could provide future assistance, not only with loans but also with free consulting and mini grants from its new Small Business Growth Fund. The fund, capitalized by philanthropic organizations and government, targets specific needs to help small businesses grow and prosper, like legal, accounting, marketing and other issues.
“Venture North’s funders are extremely interested in supporting day care,” Galbraith said, adding that “all day care centers are able to utilize Venture North’s free technical assistance coaching and/or mini grants for growth” from the new fund.
Teaching for Nature
One new provider, is Kriya Miller. In a woodland cabin outside of Cedar, Miller, 38, is embarking on a new life chapter embracing familiar elements of her past: Love of children, and nature.
She is owner and operator of the just-opened Little Valley Daycare, providing home-based child care that incorporates nature in learning and exploration, connecting children “with the natural happenings around them,” Miller said.
It’s a progression from her previous world at the Human Nature School in Traverse City, a nonprofit educational organization that she and husband Matt co-founded in 2010 and that provides year-round nature connection programs for ages four and up. The Millers stepped down as co-executive directors in December after a year of transition planning – a year that in June also brought a new son and inspiration for Kriya to spend more time at home and open a day care.
“I wanted to be present, not miss out on those early years, and still work with kids too,” she said.
Kriya Miller of Little Valley Daycare located just west of Traverse City
Child Care Capacity: It Takes a Village
And the ITCS helped make it possible, covering expenses like outdoor excavation to create a small yard, full electrical upgrades indoors, safety inspections, and startup supplies like play equipment, books, art materials and building blocks. Also, classes and background checks – “all these little costs that start to add up,” Miller said.
Beyond that, there were resources – contacts who could help with taxes or QuickBooks bookkeeping, a coach to guide through the licensing process, personal coaches to help with operating details, and Venture North’s boot camp and business coaching. Boot camp helped Miller work through many questions, like picking a business structure that best fit her plans, setting up projections, and delineating what qualifies as a business expense – an important consideration when running a business from home, Miller said.
She said the business help “gave me a lot more confidence. Having people to help guide and give their feedback, it just helps me feel like OK, this is what I want to be doing and how I want to be doing it. Less anxiety, maybe.”
Miller said it was good to know that “when questions arise I have someone to ask” at Venture North. “Not feeling that I have to figure it all out myself, is really nice.”
Speaking with Northern Lights in early February, Miller said that the path from day care idea to opening her doors, hasn’t been without challenge.
“Up until a month and a half ago I was working full time, with my husband working full time, having a baby and a teenager…there’s so many different aspects to getting going that it was overwhelming to me at times,” she said. “I’m really excited, having gotten through the bulk of that, to turn my attention to the kids.”
She has a capacity of six children 18 months and up, and only four of those children can be under 30 months, a segment already full and with a waiting list. Miller said many of her attending children live close by, and she’s excited to be working with people in her neighborhood.
“That’s part of the fun of it – strengthening the neighborhoods, the weave of the community, the connection,” Miller said.
To other entrepreneurs thinking of child care, she offers this: “The support that’s available right now is awesome, and if it’s something that you’re thinking about or haven’t done, if it’s a good fit for your family, I would say look into it.”
Similarly, families looking for care should see if they qualify for state assistance, she said. In what’s being called a child care crisis, “there are mechanisms responding to that, and are available,” Miller said.
Leelanau County: A Rural Model for Michigan
She said she “probably wouldn’t have done it without the support” through the ITCS and the Leelanau Early Childhood Development Commission. “I’m so happy that was there and that I got to benefit from that, and I’m so excited for the kids and the families that get to benefit too, now, because we’re here.”
Soutas-Little said that in addition to Miller and Kristiansen, there’s a home-based child care provider that’s launched in Lake Leelanau, a center planned in Suttons Bay Public Schools’ Lil’ Norsemen Preschool, another entrepreneur looking for a site, and one and possibly two additional providers emerging.
“It will result in more quality child care available for families,” she said.
Galbraith said “it’s been exciting to experience multiple individuals and agencies coming together to solve complex issues in Leelanau County, such as lack of day care. The county houses tremendous leaders that have diverse experience and a willingness to give back to the community.”
And Leelanau is being watched. Soutas-Little said she gets questions and calls from other regions in Michigan and outside the state, asking how the ITCS came together and how it works, the multi-organizational collaborations, volunteers and support that make the initiative possible, and, “what do you think is possible in an area like mine.”
She said that while it’s a model “that really can’t be picked up and translated in the same format,” a document is being developed to tell the story so others can identify pieces to use and adjust for their own communities. It’s an important model for rural areas to consider, she said.
“In a rural community, it has the elements of how do you do something, when you don’t have all the urban support. It demonstrates that it is doable in a rural community with limited resources.”
Amy Lane is a veteran Michigan business reporter whose background includes work with Crain Communications Inc., Crain’s Detroit Business and serving as Capitol correspondent for nearly 25 years. Now a freelance reporter and journalist, Lane’s work has appeared in many publications including Traverse City Business News.
