The Power of Partnerships: Bringing Business and Child Development Together

By Dr. Sara Watson, Director of the Center for Business Champions

At the Center for Business Champions (CBC) at Childhood Education International, we believe that partnerships between child development and business leaders have the power to create lasting change. When these collaborations work, they don’t just support children – they strengthen families, build communities, and drive economic growth.

But making partnerships thrive takes more than good intentions. It requires strategy, skills, and a shared vision.

Why Partnerships Matter

When business and child development leaders come together, the results can be transformative. Businesses can support children by advocating for better policies, funding essential programs, and improving opportunities for growth and learning. This benefits children and families while creating stronger, more resilient communities.

For businesses, supporting early childhood development (ECD) also makes good sense. Companies that adopt family-friendly policies see happier employees, higher productivity, and better retention. And when children grow up in healthy, thriving environments, they become the skilled, capable workforce of the future—something every business relies on.

Building a Business Network: Lessons from Brazil 

CE International’s Diane Whitehead and Dr. Sara Watson with members of the FADC team in Brazil, after completion of the training.

Recently at the CBC, we had the privilege of working with Fundação Abrinq pelos Direitos da Criança (FADC) in Brazil to help them establish a network of business champions for children.

FADC, a national children’s organization in Brazil, contracted us to train a dozen of their staff on strategies to engage private sector leaders, showing how businesses can support children while advancing their own goals. We provided six online training sessions for staff and a culminating in-person session to talk with a variety of private sector leaders about the business case for early childhood and the value of joining the new network. 

One of the most rewarding parts of this work was seeing the FADC team, led by Superintendent Victor Graça and Lead Staff Tamiris Medeiros Esteves, fully engage in the training. We focused on breaking down common misperceptions about partnerships and learning how to align with business culture—speaking their language, showing mutual benefits, and building trust. It was inspiring to see those moments when it all clicked and their passion turned into clear, confident plans to drive long-term change.

Embedded in the training was support to develop the structure and action plan to launch the network. 

The result? FADC has now created a network called Champions for Children to bring business leaders together to adopt practices and initiatives that support young children in Brazil. FADC is already meeting with companies, securing memberships, and putting their passion into practice.

“CE International’s training course on building Brazil’s network of business champions was an invaluable experience for our staff,” said Victor Graça, Superintendent of FADC. “The comprehensive content was tailored to our situation, the designers were responsive to our input, and the speakers were engaging and informative. It has positioned us well to launch our network! We look forward to working with them in the future.”

Success Stories that Inspire

From other, similar work around the world, we know that business networks like the one that FADC is developing in Brazil can create real, lasting change.

Prior to joining CE International, I worked with the Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU), with funding from the Bernard van Leer Foundation. By providing training and support to the Executive Director and senior staff such as Godwin Othieno, I helped them build the skills and knowledge needed to build an effective business – early childhood partnership – bridging cultural gaps, communicating effectively, and collaborating for the benefit of both sectors..

The results were transformative.

With this support, PSFU created a new network with 46 companies focused on family-friendly policies. They also hosted Uganda’s first National Business Summit on Early Childhood, which led to several impactful changes.

PSFU developed a booklet of child-friendly policies to support businesses in making decisions. Several companies adopted new policies; for example, Finance Trust Bank established breastfeeding spaces for employees and customers, and Nation Media Group in Uganda expanded parenting content in their broadcasts. Senior government leaders publicly embraced the importance of early childhood development. The finance minister made a ground-breaking statement that described investing in the well-being of children as an “economically sound investment strategy for the future,” and the minister of education called for a pre-primary classroom in every primary school.

For the first time in Uganda’s history, the private sector was actively involved in shaping national child-related policies. The country’s Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development appointed PSFU’s staff member Godwin Othieno to sit on its highest advisory body on early childhood development, and Uganda saw its first program-based budgeting framework for ECD, which became a key pillar in the country’s National Development Plan. PFSU’s advocacy work made a case for increasing the percentage of the national budget allocated to the ministry of education. The PSFU early childhood partnership generated significant attention towards ECD, as such conversations on innovative financing emerged, resulting in the establishment of the Public Private Partnership Platform for ECD financing.  

Collectively, these impacts and outcomes showcase the ripple effects of building relationships between two powerful groups of actors – child leaders and business leaders. It all began with a belief in the power of partnerships, coupled with the right skillset and a strategic approach to making it all work.

Other Networks Creating Positive Change for Children

Related work in Romania and Australia illustrates additional examples of what business-child development partnerships can achieve, and their incredible potential to drive change.

Through my work with early childhood experts in Romania (led by Carmen Lica, Executive Director of the Step by Step Center for Education and Professional Development, a Romanian NGO which is one of the founding members of the International Step by Step Association), leaders learned about the importance and potential of partnerships and created a plan for building a network of business champions.

They then partnered  with the Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce to launch a network of business champions and extended the partnership with Romanian Business Leaders, the largest NGO in Romania, which brings together the business community in Romania. Together with these two strategic partners, Step by Step Center not only supported the network of business champions but also increased the awareness about the role of the business community in supporting investments in ECD.  They organized meetings with business leaders to share the importance of investing in early childhood, and developed public policy goals to advance this mission. This collaboration laid the groundwork for stronger business engagement  in supporting children’s development.

In Australia, I talked with more than 50 business leaders across the country about the importance of early childhood and explored their interest in joining a network of business champions. Following this, a new organization called The Front Project was born. Its initial mission was to work with business leaders to raise awareness of the economic importance of early childhood to the country. This effort increased visibility for early childhood issues, and The Front Project became a national enterprise dedicated to creating positive change in Australia’s early childhood system.

These examples show how partnerships, when nurtured with the right support and strategies, can take on a variety of actions and approaches to achieve far-reaching impacts for children and communities.

What’s Possible

These stories show what is achievable when business and child development leaders join forces. With the right approach and the right tools, partnerships can make a real, measurable difference – not just for children, but for businesses and entire societies. 

Do you have experience creating business-child development partnerships? If so, we would love to hear from you. Contact us at cbc@ceinternational1892.org to share your stories of successful partnerships and collaborations.

About the Author

Dr. Sara Watson, Director of the Center for Business Champions

Dr. Sara Watson is Director of the Center for Business Champions. She is the only expert in the world who has worked in many U.S. states and cities, at the U.S. national level, and with partners in several countries to create networks of business champions for child development.

Sara founded and was the National and then Global Director of ReadyNation/ ReadyNation International, designing, fundraising for and leading the joint organization for 14 years.  Her hands-on work included personally persuading more than a thousand executives to join campaigns for early childhood investments, and supporting them to take action. She worked with local partners in Brazil, Australia, Romania and Uganda to create their own networks of business champions for early childhood.

Sara has spoken at more than 15 international meetings of child development and business leaders on how to build partnerships between the sectors.  She led the organization of more than a dozen national (U.S.) and two Global Business Summits on Early Childhood and the first European Business Forum on Early Childhood for audiences of business executives.

Sara also co-chaired ECDAN’s Advocacy Task Force in 2016-2018.  Before creating ReadyNation, she led The Pew Charitable Trusts’ national advocacy campaign for pre-K.  Dr. Watson is now an independent consultant and the founder and principal of Watson Strategies, LLC. She serves in a consulting capacity with CE International.

Sara holds Master of Public Policy and Ph.D. degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School.  More information, including a complete list of presentations and publications, is at www.watson-strategies.com.