Full Article:On June 29th, the Mile High United Way (MHUW) held its annual Celebration at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to honor those people, companies, and organizations whose commitment and dedication to the community advances the common good and demonstrates what it means to LIVE UNITED. This year, MHUW presented the David and Laura Merage Foundation (DLMF) with the Anna Jo Haynes Caring About Kids Award. This award recognizes those, whose work with and for children within the early care and education (ECE) community exemplifies the highest level of commitment.
The David and Laura Merage Foundation utilizes a results-oriented business approach to invest philanthropic resources in Colorado's ECE sector. Their Early Learning Ventures (ELV) initiative provides effective business solutions for the child care sector to increase quality and strengthen operations. ELV created a web-based technology system to streamline the difficult tasks of running a small, independent child care business by pulling all of the tools—such as accounting software, records for licensing and high-quality curriculum—into one centralized place, saving the providers considerable time and money.
The David and Laura Merage Foundation sees venture capital and technology as forward thinking investments, and believes the ELV Alliance shared services model will allow child care businesses to become stronger, more accountable, financially sound and efficient, and better equipped to offer affordable, high quality services.
MHUW is proud to collaborate with ELV in the creation of the ELV Alliance Venture Fund. DLMF committed $550,000 of seed money to kick off the ELV Venture Fund development effort, with the goal of launching ten ELV Alliances across Colorado by the summer of 2012. It is estimated that a fully implemented, statewide consortium of 30 regional ELV Alliances has the potential to impact over 3,000 small early care and education businesses, employ 13,500 professionals, and serve 70,000 of Colorado’s children ages birth to five with parents in the workforce.