What strategies should North Carolina deploy, and in which communities, to increase child care access?

The Governor's Office and the NC Division of Child Development and Early Education are seeking proposals for Phase 1: evaluation planning and design across two rural child care pilots. This funded, two- to three-month engagement will establish the evaluation approach, comparison-group and data strategy, common measures, cost-effectiveness methodology, and a costed scope of work for a potential full evaluation. View the RFP and submit a proposal through Catalyst Exchange by September 7, 2026, at 11:59 PM ET. Read the ongoing questions and answers document, which will be updated periodically through September 2. The selected evaluator is expected to be positioned to conduct Phase 2, the full evaluation, if dedicated funding is secured.

North Carolina is preparing to test two complementary approaches to expanding rural child care access. The Rural Child Care Business Sustainability Pilot will work in approximately three communities to strengthen existing providers through child care management technology, standardized business coaching, and operational capacity grants. The Family Child Care Home Direct Support Pilot, established by Session Law 2026-41, will work through three Councils of Governments in the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Mountain regions. It will focus on creating new family child care homes through recruitment, startup assistance, technology and substitute-teacher supports, and ongoing mentorship. A separately procured statewide survey will gather families' child care needs, preferences, current arrangements, and barriers to care, with intentional oversampling in the six pilot communities.

The evaluation will help North Carolina decide when to strengthen existing child care supply, when to create new supply, and when to combine both approaches. Findings should support decisions about implementation, cost-effectiveness, and statewide scale. The final analysis must distinguish causal or quasi-experimental evidence from descriptive findings, implementation findings, and emerging hypotheses so decision-makers can see both what was learned and how strongly the evidence supports each conclusion.

During Phase 1, the selected evaluator will be expected to:

• Work with the Governor's Office, DCDEE, and pilot design teams while provider and county selection, implementation partners, timelines, and data infrastructure are still being finalized.
• Identify design choices that strengthen or weaken a future comparison-group evaluation, then document the remaining evaluability risks at the pilots' design-lock point.
• Develop feasible comparison-group and data-collection approaches for each pilot, including data governance, consent, and data-sharing needs.
• Produce an evaluation plan, cost-effectiveness methodology, and a detailed, costed Phase 2 scope of work.
• Propose how findings from the separately procured statewide family survey could be incorporated into the pilot evaluations.

Phase 1 is philanthropically funded with a budget of $30,000-$90,000, depending on the proposed scope of work. Phase 2, full evaluation implementation, is not yet funded and is contingent on the Office securing dedicated funding informed by the Phase 1 evaluation plan and costed scope of work.

Data availability and quality will be assessed during the first phase. The evaluation partner should not assume that the two pilots currently use identical definitions, reporting processes, or data systems; common definitions and pilot-specific limitations will be documented.

Teams should be able to design and carry out a rigorous, practical multi-site evaluation; develop credible comparison strategies; combine administrative, survey, financial, and qualitative evidence; assess costs and cost-effectiveness; and translate findings into clear guidance for decision-makers.

Experience with child care or early childhood programs and government pilots is preferred. Familiarity with North Carolina's child care system and DCDEE data is helpful but not required.

The evaluator will define the final data specification, including variables, units of analysis, collection frequency, source, and responsible party. Expected inputs include provider enrollment and operations data; licensed and operational capacity; vacancies; infant and toddler capacity; provider creation and retention; staffing; financial sustainability; implementation records; qualitative interviews; and findings from the statewide family child care needs and preferences survey. The design should establish baseline measures before intervention wherever feasible, identify the data needed for a comparison condition for each pilot, and specify which elements require provider consent or additional privacy and data-sharing protections.

Proposals should demonstrate:

• Methodological rigor and realism: A credible design that fits the pilots' actual statutory, operational, geographic, and budget constraints.
• Cross-pilot coherence: A useful common learning framework without overstating causal comparability between two different interventions.
• Measurement and data planning: Clear common and pilot-specific measures, active-data-collection comparison approaches, and a practical data-governance strategy.
• Relevant experience: Multi-site and multi-intervention evaluation, quasi-experimental methods, mixed methods, cost-effectiveness analysis, early childhood or child care research, and government demonstrations.
• Feasibility and communication: A realistic Phase 1 work plan and budget, capacity to carry out a future full evaluation, and clear communication for policymakers, agencies, funders, and implementation partners.

The opportunity is intended for an independent evaluation firm, research organization, or consultant with experience designing and conducting multi-site, multi-intervention evaluations. Proposals should identify the Phase 1 team, relevant roles, examples of comparable evaluations the respondent has both designed and executed, and capacity and interest to carry out Phase 2 if funding is secured.