Becoming a top election issue and delivering a $1B win for the middle class.

The Story

Lack of affordable child care has become one of the biggest pain-points for young families today. Almost everyone agreed the current situation is a crisis, and after a generation of inaction the issue was ripe for being solved in a bold new way.

Providing a vision and a plan – and creating the political will to implement it – was what the women behind the $10 a Day Childcare campaign set out to do. 

The child care movement had been growing in British Columbia for 20 years, and was approaching a tipping point. Growing beyond its long time feminist/socialist roots, they had begun to build an impressive and diverse new base of support, a base that would ultimately help bring the issue to massive prominence. 

We helped the campaign tell a greatly simplified and hopeful story that put these new constituencies at the forefront of the messaging. Endorsements and stories from Chambers of Commerce, major employers, and middle class professionals helped reposition the issue in an intersectional way as a top concern for everyone who cares about families, children, inequality, and intergenerational equity. 

We then helped them identify and activate their core base and these new supporters through storytelling, social media, mobilization and smart media work to help the issue and plan for solving it show up everywhere. 

When the provincial election came along, the long in opposition New Democratic Party saw the momentum, grabbing childcare as the centerpiece of their ultimately successful election campaign. In the BC Government’s first full budget, over $1B was allocated to creating essentially the same $10 a Day Childcare plan this group had been advocating for years. It was a historic win for the women behind the campaign and the tens of thousands of supporters who made it happen, the first new social program delivered in a generation. 

Our Impact

• New story forefronted new, more diverse constituencies necessary to reposition issue and win
• Visuals and content strategy greatly simplified complex policy plan
• Campaign assets including web, social, NationBuilder and New/Mode tools and organizer staff served as platform for growth and mobilization 
• Child care became top issue of 2017 provincial election 
• $1B allocated in first budget by NDP government to implement the $10 a Day Plan