Good work goes further when funders work together.
Invest Early NC brings North Carolina funders together to align investment, relationships, and advocacy around shared priorities for young children and families.
Funders learn alongside partners, identify opportunities to work collectively, and connect philanthropic resources and influence in ways that strengthen work already underway across North Carolina.
Together, we work to strengthen and connect what is already happening across the state and identify where collective investment and action can add value.
At the center of this work is Invest Early, Build Together, a shared 10-year plan for North Carolina’s youngest children.
A shared plan for long-term progress.
Invest Early, Build Together: A 10-Year Plan for North Carolina’s Youngest Children gives Invest Early NC and its partners a long-term direction for connecting investment, policy, advocacy, and action.
The plan builds from North Carolina’s strong programs, providers, advocates, institutions, and community networks. It has been shaped by philanthropic leadership, partner input, and expertise from people working across the systems that affect young children and families.
The plan creates a shared direction for sustained progress while remaining adaptable as evidence, partner input, policy conditions, and implementation needs evolve.
Shared priorities. Different ways to contribute.
Invest, Engage, and Advocate are the three connected ways Invest Early NC carries its role forward.
Invest
Align philanthropic resources around shared priorities and opportunities for long-term progress.
Engage
Learn with partners and connect statewide strategy to expertise and experience across North Carolina.
Advocate
Bring philanthropy’s collective voice and resources to policy and systems priorities that support young children and families.
“The conditions for families with young children to thrive are knowable, achievable, and worth fighting for.”
Partnership keeps the work connected.
Invest Early NC works alongside advocates, public partners, providers, community organizations, business leaders, and others already advancing this work across North Carolina.
Those partners bring critical expertise, implementation experience, community relationships, and knowledge of what is already working and where gaps remain. Their perspectives inform philanthropic strategy and help funders identify where coordinated investment, advocacy, and convening can strengthen existing efforts.
Funders and partners bring distinct roles to the work, with stronger coordination creating more opportunities for lasting progress.
A shared plan gives collaboration somewhere to go.
Each funder brings its own mission, priorities, and relationships. Invest Early NC creates space to identify where funders can work together, where collective investment can add value, and how philanthropic resources can reinforce public and community efforts over time.
Together, that creates stronger coordination around the long-term investments, policy changes, and shared priorities that can move progress further across the state.
Independent funders. Shared opportunities for action.
Invest Early NC works alongside advocates, public partners, providers, community organizations, business leaders, and others already advancing this work across North Carolina.
Those partners bring critical expertise, implementation experience, community relationships, and knowledge of what is already working and where gaps remain. Their perspectives inform philanthropic strategy and help funders identify where coordinated investment, advocacy, and convening can strengthen existing efforts.
Invest Early NC also recognizes that funders, advocates, policymakers, public agencies, providers, families, communities, and other partners each bring a distinct role to this work. Lasting progress depends on those roles staying connected over time.
Each participating funder retains its own mission, grantmaking priorities, relationships, and decision-making.
Invest Early NC creates a place for funders to identify where working together can add value, where philanthropic resources can reinforce public and community efforts, and where a collective voice can move shared priorities further.
