The Iowa Women’s Foundation has established a Child Care Collaborative Fund, which will focus on strategies to increase the economic security of women in communities across Iowa by expanding access to quality, affordable child care. The foundation has made its first investment from the fund with a $10,000 grant to Linking Families and Communities in Fort Dodge. The grant will fund pre-design work by an architect for an expansion to the Community Early Learning Center, as well as a new child care center to create 200 additional child care spaces in that community. “The lack of affordable, accessible child care is a major barrier to women’s economic self-sufficiency in all of Iowa’s 99 counties, and in 2018, the Iowa Women’s Foundation will increase our focus on finding solutions to the child care crisis,” said Dawn Oliver Wiand, executive director of the Iowa City-based foundation.To learn more about the Iowa Women’s Foundation’s grant-making efforts, visit iawf.org. A video outlining Iowa’s child care crisis can be found on the group’s Facebook page.