Quoted from the article by Noor Haghighi, Arizona Public Media:

The Community Investment Corporation is a Tucson-based nonprofit that provides loans and financial coaching for small businesses. Earlier this year, it was one of several local organizations awarded $700,000 to support small childcare businesses that are less likely to get loans from banks.

The award is part of a greater $3 million effort from the state to expand affordable childcare access.

“One way to do that is to work with some of the mom and pop childcare providers to see what they might need to expand who they can serve, increase the quality of their spaces that they have to serve children and hopefully to become a brick and mortar,” says Danny Knee, CIC’s executive director.

Knee says the grant will help keep the childcare workforce running locally.

“It’s really important to have these public funds available to help with what we consider also a public good,” he says. “[It’s] something that doesn’t just help the individuals who can get childcare, it helps our entire community and our economy.”