Home Grown is a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring home-based child care providers are visible, valued, and well-resourced. Their mission has three pillars: amplifying child care providers’ voices in policy, funding direct support and government partnerships, and driving innovation through pilot programs that shape the future of child care in America.
With their national initiative, the Thriving Providers Project, as well as their emergency response funds, Home Grown demonstrates how direct assistance and community engagement can stabilize and strengthen child care providers nationwide.
Here’s the story of how Beam became their trusted partner.
The challenge: Expanding a multi-site guaranteed income pilot
A few years back, Home Grown tested a pilot guaranteed income program in Colorado called the Thriving Providers Project. It was a great success, but when Home Grown decided to expand its program into additional states, it became clear that their existing cash assistance delivery platform couldn’t grow with them.
The Home Grown team needed a platform that could scale to efficiently manage their many locations across the nation, each with its own community-driven configurations. They also wanted both application processing and fund distribution to be managed within a single tool -– and unique variations within the application itself.
The solution: Transforming aid delivery with Beam’s configurable, comprehensive platform
After a thorough evaluation process, including feature comparison and reference checks with shared partners, Beam emerged as the best fit for Home Grown’s growing needs. From common values to easily configurable features, the Home Grown team knew they could trust Beam to help them scale their program across the nation.
End-to-end aid management for child care providers
When Home Grown discovered Beam, they were seeking a platform that could speak to a diverse and nuanced set of needs. They needed a solution that could manage the application process and fund distribution for the Thriving Providers Project, an initiative committed to local co-design resulting in variation across its sites.
As a result of the success of the partnership, when Home Grown retooled its pandemic-era Emergency Fund in 2024 to now support caregivers experiencing national disasters, Beam was well positioned to support the application and fund distribution in that program as well.
Natalie Renew, the Executive Director of Home Grown, explained how Beam supports both the application process as well as cash distribution for the specifications of each Home Grown program:
“For the Thriving Providers Project, providers submit their applications into Beam directly and the local implementation partner approves the applications. In the emergency fund, providers apply via Beam and the Home Grown team does the approvals.”
In order to offer any of these programs at the scale that Home Grown does, they need a predictable payment platform that can be trusted to deliver payments on time and in the appropriate form.
Natalie revealed that, without Beam, Home Grown wouldn’t be able to guarantee the predictability that makes these recurring payment programs so impactful.
Flexibility to adapt to multiple locations and emergency situations
While predictability and comprehensiveness are important, the Home Grown team also needed the ability to adapt the platform for each local hub. Community is at the heart of the Thriving Providers Project, and as a result, they needed a platform that can meet each community’s differing needs.
For each location, the Beam team works closely with Home Grown’s program administrators and community to build out the application tailored to their needs, without program delays or excessive costs.
“Beam allows us to replicate our model in new locations without the cost or complexity of starting from scratch,” Natalie shared. “That’s been critical to our national expansion.”
Part of that expansion included emergency funds to support child care providers in response to natural disasters. For those, implementation time, in addition to adaptability, was critical to helping home-based caregivers recover quickly in times of need.
Natalie highlighted that the time to launch is one of the most important advantages of using Beam.
“Beam has been able to build us an application in a matter of days, recognizing the urgency of the disaster context,” she said. “And each of those applications have been pretty significantly different to meet the circumstances of each disaster.”
After each emergency fund launched, Beam continued to make improvements to the platform based on community input over time.
Outstanding support & deep understanding
Beam and Home Grown share a deep commitment to community-centered design and impact. As a result, Beam operates as a true partner in supporting economic opportunity and mobility.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re working with a software vendor. It feels like we’re working with a partner who shares our values and truly understands the communities we serve,” said Natalie.
Natalie shared that communication with the Beam team is effective because they each speak each other’s language — a language of care, community, compassion, and problem-solving.
“And if ever we’re not on the same page, they’re very generous to take the time and walk us through their process. They’re also super responsive — the timeliness of responses to requests is extremely quick.”
The results: A partnership built for growth
Since partnering with Beam, Home Grown has been able to scale the Thriving Providers Project from a single pilot to 5 sites around the United States. They’ve also launched three active emergency funds, with sites in North Carolina, Florida, and Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles site alone has processed over 600 applications so far, providing direct cash relief to hundreds of child care providers impacted by the disaster. Natalie revealed that Beam’s quick application development made Home Grown’s fund the first of any fund for the child care workforce to respond to the fire.
“We're the very first fund that was set up in LA to respond to the fire. And even today, there is no similar fund in place for others in the early childhood workforce. The combination of the partnerships that Home Grown has, with the technical capabilities Beam has to do that work, has allowed this program to make a real impact.”
Natalie and the Home Grown team couldn’t have been happier with their partnership with Beam.
“We simply couldn’t have grown our programs at this scale without Beam. Their responsiveness, flexibility, and deep understanding of our mission have made them an invaluable partner," says Natalie.
Home Grown and Beam continue to collaborate on expanding financial support for child care providers nationwide. With a shared commitment to community-driven change, the partnership has served as a model for how mission-aligned organizations can work together to create lasting impact.
