Dr. C. Nicole Mason Appointed As Chair Of The Board Of All Our Kin Empowering Educators From Harlem To Hollis

Today, All Our Kin, a national nonprofit organization that trains, supports, and sustains family child care educators, announced the appointment of Dr. C. Nicole Mason, PhD.

Dr. Mason is the current president and CEO for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, as Chair of the Board.

In this role, Mason will work alongside All Our Kin’s leadership during a period of rapid growth to empower family child care educators from Harlem to Hollis and Connecticut and increase high-quality child care access across the country.

Mason, who has served on the Board of All Our Kin for almost five years, is taking the helm as the organization begins to implement an ambitious 5-year strategic plan.

With a proven track record in raising the quality, availability, and sustainability of child care in low-income communities, All Our Kin is now poised to scale the organization’s impact from its current 40,000 children to at least 150,000 by 2026, and increase its reach to more than 20,000 family child care educators.

They are also committed to a transformation of our child care system that centers equity, emphasizes quality, and is financially sustainable for educators and families.

“This is the perfect time to commit to transformative change in the child care industry,” said Mason. “Recent, widespread recognition that the system is broken, and that providers, parents, and children have suffered even more greatly during the pandemic, means that we have an unparalleled opportunity for change at the state and federal level. At its root, All Our Kin’s work addresses the intersectionality of civil rights, children’s rights and women’s rights, and its innovative model allows women, working families and young people to thrive. I’m honored to work alongside All Our Kin’s leadership, staff and my fellow board members to build on the organization’s work and empower more educators and children moving forward.”

“We are thrilled that Dr. Mason will chair our Board, bringing her deep-seated knowledge and commitment to equity to the fore. Her extensive research and expertise will help us bring more awareness to the child care crisis’ effect on our economy,” said Jessica Sager, co-founder and CEO of All Our Kin. “The first step in addressing the current child care crisis – and eventually fixing the system as a whole – is to give child care workers the funding and resources necessary to take care of our children. Dr. Mason is the perfect person to help All Our Kin extend our research and scope, reach even more providers, and empower more working families to thrive.”

Family child care is a common form of child care that takes place in the home of a paid provider.

These educators operate small, home-based programs that are the primary source of care for our youngest children, many of whom are children of color and children from low-income communities.

Family child care provides a high-quality early childhood education in an intimate environment, and is flexible, affordable, and often available during non-traditional hours.

The current child care crisis has led to historically low wages for those that work in the family child care industry – and 93 percent of these educators are women.

These low wages have pushed educators away from the industry, which has caused staffing shortages and program closures around the country.

Mason is the author of Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey from Nothing to Something in America. Prior to her position as President and CEO at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Mason served as Vice President of Programs at the Washington Area Women’s Foundation and Director of the Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest.

Mason also served as Executive Director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

There, she held the distinction of being one of the youngest scholar-practitioners to lead a major U.S. research center or think tank.

She is also an Ascend Fellow at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC, and has written hundreds of articles on women, leadership development and economic security.

All Our Kin is a national nonprofit organization that trains, supports and sustains family child care educators.

Through All Our Kin’s programming, educators build sustainable child care businesses, parents have access to stable, high-quality child care, and children gain the educational foundation that lays the groundwork for success in school and life.