Running a Child Care Business

Minnesotans may take point of pride on near-perfect performance in every quality of life rankingeconomic developers examine, yet Mankato’s Center for Rural Policy and Development calls the shortage of child care in Minnesota “a quiet crisis.” 

US companies that offer on-site day care for their employees are rare, but experts estimate that between 4 and 8 percent of employers do offer the perk. 

Some large Minnesota employers – Carlson Companies, Boston Scientific, Thomson Reuters, Allianz, General Mills – offer backup child care or partner with on-site child care providers to benefit their employees. Greater Minnesota employers that provide this benefit – Harmony Enterprises in Harmony and Gardonville Cooperative Telephone Association in Brandon are two – are the exception. 

DEED is attempting to remedy that with grants and a new guidebook. Read more here. 

In February DEED awarded grants totaling $500,000 in grants under the Greater Minnesota Childcare Grants Program to eight groups that will work to increase the number of child care providers in their Greater Minnesota communities. DEED will award a second round of grants later this year.

DEED is also offering a free manual on how to start a family child care business. 

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