When Commitment Becomes the Business Model

The new NAEYC and NAFCC workforce findings (NAEYC and NAFCC, 2026) tell an important story about family childcare. Many of the numbers are troubling: long working hours, limited benefits, increasing costs, administrative burdens, unstable subsidy systems, and educators considering leaving the field. But one finding deserves more attention than simply being added to another list of workforce challenges. 

Family childcare appears to be sustained, at least partly, by what educators are personally willing to absorb. 

Nearly three-quarters of surveyed family childcare educators reported working 50 or more hours each week, and nearly half reported working 60 or more. Half reported take-home earnings of $15 an hour or less after program expenses. Yet, 54% of home-based respondents reported having no retirement savings, 53% no paid sick leave, and 45% no paid vacation leave. 

Those numbers describe more than a compensation problem. They describe a system in which the boundary between business sustainability and personal sacrifice has become dangerously thin. 

What Providers Should Know 

For providers, perhaps the most important message is that many of the pressures they experience are not simply evidence that they need to become better business owners. Business knowledge matters. Enrollment management matters. Budgeting, marketing, leadership, and financial planning matters. But better business practices cannot completely compensate for a financing structure that may itself be unstable. 

The report illustrates this tension particularly well. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed family childcare educators participate in childcare subsidies or vouchers, and 76% participate in CACFP. Yet 66% said their income limits their ability to afford retirement or health insurance benefits; 55% said it limits their ability to hire staff, and 42% said it limits their ability to pay for professional development. That distinction matters. 

We should absolutely help providers strengthen their businesses. But we should be careful about sending the message that every struggling program is simply a business that has not yet learned to operate effectively. Sometimes the business owner needs stronger skills. 

Sometimes the system needs a better business model. 

Providers should also begin documenting what their businesses actually require to operate. Hours worked, unpaid administrative time, delayed reimbursements, vacancies, subsidy disruptions, insurance increases, and other expenses are not merely frustrations. Collectively, they are evidence of the true cost of delivering care. 

What Funders Should Know 

Funders should pay particular attention to the difference between funding services and sustainability. A grant may purchase training. A subsidy may pay for a child's care. A scholarship may help an educator earn a credential. All those investments can be valuable. But the report suggests another question: 

Does the investment strengthen the underlying capacity of the provider to remain in business? 

Consider the contradiction. Family childcare educators are participating extensively in publicly funded programs, while many still cannot afford benefits, staff or professional development. Meanwhile, operating expenses are increasing. The report found that 91% of home-based programs experienced increased materials costs, 82% increased facility-maintenance costs, and 77% increased property-insurance costs. Yet only 31% reported increasing tuition, compared with 65% of center-based programs. That gap deserves serious attention from funders. 

Providers may be absorbing costs because families cannot absorb them. Families may be unable to pay more because wages and subsidies cannot be absorbed. Eventually somebody carries the difference. 

Too often, the provider becomes the shock absorber for the entire system. 

Funders therefore might reconsider how success is measured. Instead of asking only how many providers completed training or how many children received services, measures could include whether providers increased revenue, built reserves, gained benefits, reduced uncompensated administrative work, hired assistance, improved cash flow or remained operational. 

What Leadership Should Know 

For association leaders, system leaders and policymakers, one of the most consequential findings may be about succession. Fifty-eight percent of the NAFCC respondents were age 50 or older. Fifty-two percent expected to operate their programs for ten years or less, while one-third expected to operate for no more than another five years. That transforms the conversation. This isn't only a current workforce shortage. It may be an approaching leadership, ownership, and capacity succession problem. 

If experienced family childcare educators retire or close their programs without people prepared to replace them, communities lose more than childcare slots. They lose small businesses, experienced educators, neighborhood relationships, cultural knowledge, mentors, and an important part of the early childhood infrastructure. 

Leadership development, therefore, cannot be limited to professional development for people who are already in the field. We need to think about who will enter, lead, own, and sustain the next generation of family childcare businesses. 

And we need experienced providers involved in designing those solutions. 

The Question I Think We Should Be Asking 

NAEYC and NAFCC appropriately identify several policy responses - stronger federal childcare funding, more stable subsidy administration, prospective and enrollment-based payments, improved compensation and benefits, and reduced administrative burdens. Those recommendations matter. But I would add another layer to the conversation. 

We need to stop treating provider resilience as a financing strategy. 

A system can appear functional for a surprisingly long time when committed people compensate for its weaknesses. They work longer hours. They postpone retirement savings. They do paperwork at night. They accept delayed payments. They avoid raising tuition because families cannot afford it. They perform administrative, teaching, and business functions themselves because they cannot afford additional staff. 

From the outside, the program is still open. From the inside, the owner may be subsidizing the system with her time, income, health, and future financial security. 

That is not sustainability. It is deferred instability. 

References 

National Association for the Education of Young Children, & National Association for Family Child Care. (2026). Unique strengths and unique strains: Exploring workforce survey data on home-based child care. https://nafcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Unique-Strengths-and-Unique-Strains_Exploring-Workforce-Survey-Data-on-Home-Based-Child-Care.pdf

About the Author

Victoria Long-Coleman, Ph.D., MBA is the Founder and Principal of Early Childhood Innovations. An early childhood educator, leadership coach, author, and speaker, she focuses on strengthening educators, developing leaders, and translating research into practical approaches that improve early childhood systems.

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