Introducing to SVP: BabyGoRound

Please join us in extending a warm welcome back to BabyGoRound! BabyGoRound (BGR) brings critical support to under-resourced families by providing resources and essential baby gear, helping families to safely care for their babies and toddlers, and ensuring that families are equipped and empowered to thrive. They aim to ensure that “all vulnerable families have the essential resources to safely care for their babies, through a shared and connected community.” 

They’ll be joining us again as part of our Early Years Innovation Fund to help scale their important programs to new communities in Metro Vancouver. Our Early Years Innovation Fund invests in organizations supporting children under age 6 and their families. We recognize that intervening during this formative time can alter the trajectory of a child’s life and can lead to an estimated 10x social return to society over time. Our updated landscape review in our Early Years Impact Report identified that some of the most pressing challenges in the Early Years space currently include child poverty and a general lack of support for families. BGR’s programming does important work to address these two challenges.

Scaling with SVP’s Help to Serve the Region’s Needs

BabyGoRound were previous SVP Investees from 2019 to 2021. We funded them to support stabilization, strategic planning, governance, and a full-time leadership model. Since their initial partnership with us, they’ve seen a steep increase in demand for their services—as large as 50% this past year. We’re very much looking forward to working closely with BabyGoRound, and we’re excited to help them scale their programs to communities east of the Port Mann Bridge.  

BabyGoRound aims to offer a second location to clients in the Fraser Health area, allowing them to significantly increase their reach and the number of families they serve, offer better access, and enhance the client experience. Opening a second location will also reduce pressure on the Vancouver location. As BabyGoRound scales, so too will their need for expanded community support, brand awareness, and organizational capacity. The
Early Years Innovation Fund grant SVP is providing them will help them assess and then deliver on the best model of scale to grow their programming. 

About BabyGoRound

In 2022-2023, 100% of BabyGoRound’s support went to families with income lower than $40,000 annually, including families facing barriers including unemployment, being newcomers to Canada or refugees, and single-parents households. Nearly unanimously, parents and caregivers supported by BabyGoRound’s programming reported a reduction in their financial and parental stress, and an improvement in their mental health.

Measuring Their Impact

BabyGoRound measures their impact on the families they serve through three key community benefits:

• Improved economic security
• Increased personal capacity
• Improved opportunities and well-being for their children

Studies show that financial stress can have a dramatic effect on children in the early years, with family income having a clear effect on school readiness and the school journey. 

BabyGoRound describes their impact as follows:

While BabyGoRound equips and empowers new parents with everything they need to safely and confidently care for their babies and toddlers, reducing parental stress, we are also relieving financial stress—freeing money for other household costs, such as food, that make a remarkable difference in the day to day lives of vulnerable families. Year after year, our annual client survey has consistently seen over 94% of our client families report a significant decrease in both parental stress and financial stress after receiving our services, thus truly supporting brighter beginnings for babies and their families.

We are thrilled to be working with BabyGoRound again to help them scale their programs and are excited to explore with them how they can further scale to families and communities that need it most beyond the Metro Vancouver region. 

With SVP’s Support, BabyGoRound Plans To…

BabyGoRound is aiming to increase their capacity in several areas, including the following:

• Management
• Human Resources
• Fund Development
• Technology
• Social Impact
• Financial Management

Learn more about BabyGoRound and their impact here.