This project explores how innovative financing mechanisms could help strengthen and scale early years and integrated family support services in a sustainable way. We are investigating how alternative financial models – such as blended finance, community assets financing, and commercialisation – could help unlock new forms of capital to support better outcomes for children and families.

Through desk-based research and interviews with experts from across early years, social investment, and adjacent sectors, we are examining a wide range of case studies in the UK and internationally. The work will culminate in a practical synthesis of insights and emerging prototypes for potential funding models, which we hope will support the early-years sector in exploring new approaches to long-term service delivery.

Our goal is to support the development of more resilient, investable early years and family support services by identifying financial models that can attract capital, enable innovation, and strengthen long-term sustainability. We aim to help policymakers, funders, and practitioners explore practical funding strategies that better align with outcomes and are more capable of supporting preventative delivery models.

There is growing recognition that the early years are a critical window for improving long-term outcomes – from educational attainment to health and wellbeing. Yet the funding models underpinning early years and family support services are often short-term, fragmented, and vulnerable to fiscal pressures.

In the context of economic constraint, relying solely on public funding is unlikely to deliver the scale or sustainability required. At the same time, there is untapped potential to think differently about how early-years services are resourced – drawing on lessons from other sectors and countries where financial innovation has enabled long-term, outcomes-focused investment.

This project is driven by a simple but urgent question: how can we build more resilient, equitable, and future-fit funding models for the early years? By rethinking the role of capital – including philanthropy, private investment, and community assets – we want to help shift the conversation from short-term cost to long-term value.

Nesta’s fairer start mission aims for every child in the UK to have the same chance of developing to their full potential in the early years. To achieve this, we are researching interesting, novel models for funding through this project and engaging with the early-years sector and investment specialists through targeted interviews. 

We are looking at examples of innovative financing arrangements in the UK and around the world, and across sectors where we think lessons could be drawn for the early years. Our current focus areas include: 

• finance models that blend public, philanthropic and private capital (including social outcome partnerships)
• commercialising early-years provision to improve investability 
• harnessing community assets and investment for sustainable financing.