Montgomery Moving Forward

Montgomery Moving Forward kicked off its focus on Early Care and Education at a Symposium on November 17 at Discovery Communications. Read about the highlights here. Check out MMF’s two new data trend sheets highlighting key demographic trends in Early Care and Education (Early Care and Education in Montgomery County: Trends and Key Factors and Montgomery County Demographic Snapshot). To sign up for MMF emails, click here.

Montgomery Moving Forward (MMF) is experimenting with a new way of working together to solve problems. We will find common ground, come to a common vision and embrace specific and actionable plans to tackle our problems.

MMF is building on the collective people power and talent in Montgomery County to bring together committed and invested leaders from all of our communities and professions–including education, business, philanthropy, nonprofits and government.

The good news is that many problems are new to the County and therefore not intractable. We have veteran and emerging leaders who bring vision and insight to the table. We have the resources, intellectual capital and will to solve our problems. That’s what MMF is all about.

For more information about MMF view our One Pager, visit our website, or contact Sharon Friedman. 

• Sponsor a MMF “learning” gathering to go deeper on different aspects of the problem and potential solutions with experts in the field
• Co-host a MMF awareness building opportunity for representatives of your community (i.e. philanthropy, business, government, nonprofits, education, congregations, neighborhoods) to learn more about this critical economic and social issue.
• Encourage your employees to participate in a simple MMF survey in the data-gathering phase of this project; we will share with you both the data gathered from your employees and the aggregate data captured from all participating employers
• Participate in a fact finding site visit to local Early Care and Education initiatives
• Commit you or the appropriate member(s) of your leadership team to participate in fact finding and solution response meetings to help gather data and set the stage for MMFs Call to Action
• Commit you or the appropriate member of your leadership team to review the draft set of MMF Call to Action recommendations
• Commit you or the appropriate member of your leadership team to participate in education and awareness-building meetings with elected officials and the media
• Make a financial investment in Early Care and Education through MMF

Click here to make your commitment to MMF’s work. Contact Sharon Friedman with questions.

MMF welcomes new Leadership Group members:

• April Kaplan, Executive Director, Montgomery County Collaboration Council for Children, Youth and Families, Inc.
• Adam Luecking, CEO, Clear Impact
• David Petr, President & CEO, Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation

Montgomery Moving Forward’s updated website
Early Care and Education in Montgomery County: Trends and Key Factors (November 2016)
Montgomery County Demographic Snapshot (November 2016)
A Local Economic Perspective (video) – featuring David Nguyen, Founder and CEO, United Solutions & Bob Buchanan, Partner, Buchanan Partners, Chair, Board of Directors, Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation

Kevin Beverly, President & CEO, Social and Scientific Systems, Inc. and Andy Burness, President, Burness closed the Montgomery Moving Forward Community Symposium on November 17, 2016 by explaining that MMF is building towards a community-wide Call to Action to improve early care and education in Montgomery County. It will include policy recommendations and suggested roles for different sectors as well as indicators to measure success. Symposium attendees were invited to commit to specific actions on early care and education.

Since the Symposium 55 community leaders have already pledged to support our collective effort to ensure an effective Early Care and Education system of affordable cost, high quality and easy availability for all.

“Let us remember this as the day we got started,” said Councilmember Hans Riemer to a packed Discovery Communications auditorium on November 17. Over two hundred business and community leaders gathered for the 6th Annual Community Symposium to learn about Montgomery Moving Forward’s (MMF) new focus: Early Care and Education.

The Symposium explored the economic imperative for Early Care and Education. Indeed, investment in early childhood education yields a return of at least 3:1. Sara Watson, Global Director, Ready Nation, one of the Symposium presenters, noted that investing in Early Childhood is the most effective proven driver of economic growth in MD, United States, and the world. (more…)

We’ve updated our website to include more information on Montgomery Moving Forward. Learn more about collective impact and MMF’s first and second issues.

Nonprofit Montgomery is the backbone organization for Montgomery Moving Forward (read their One Pager). In the most recent communique, MMF identifies Early Childcare and Education as its next challenge.