Earning Extra Income for Your Childcare Center is Easier Than You May Think
Earn Extra Income For Your Childcare Center
As a childcare consultant, I meet with centers across the U.S. I am often approached on new ways to generate more income beyond just enrollment. Even when I ran my own childcare centers before starting Child Care Biz Help, I often asked myself that same question. Although I am very innovative at generating new ideas, I always knew there had to be a pot of gold beyond enrollment, but what and where was it?
There is more to revenue than tuition income
As I interact with more and more childcare industry leaders, I realize how creative we can be in the early education industry on finding new ways to differentiate ourselves and how to charge for those differences. There are alot of great ideas out there on how to concentrate your activities beyond daycare tuition.
Interesting things child care centers do to increase their revenue include:
Charge for enrichment programs. Utilize your teaching staff and even outside vendors to organize and help you offer specialized activities such as yoga, Spanish, cooking, science, and even art.
Expand “other fees” you charge. Late fees and return check fees are only a couple ways to earn other income. With the programs your center offers, don’t be shy to charge annual registration fees, accreditation fees, and even technology fees if your center has innovation incorporated into curriculum.
Limit “discounts” and “credits”. Pay attention to how much money you are losing due to excessive discounts and credits.
Consider new ways to offer specials. How about awarding scholarships instead of a special, and limit the number you offer?
Ensure regular tuition increases. Every year tuition rates should increase without hesitation. Conduct an analysis of your local competition and price to compete.
Take advantage of Food Program money. If you have a high subsidy count, you most likely qualify for food program funds. Programs like this require lots of paperwork but it’s worth it.
Find grants. There are opportunities appearing again for certain grants. Do your homework on grants your community might offer.
Fund-raise for a specific purpose. Don’t be afraid to get your families rallying toward one cause that will help make your center better. Have a clear goal that will have a common use.
Utilize space for rental use. If you have space that can be rented out during off hours, do it!
Hop, skip, and jump to more revenue
Ever thought about that missed income from those empty spots that you could be selling? I recently met up with a company who has a solution I fell in love with immediately! The owner comes from childcare, owning nine centers in the Chicago metro area. Makes sense he would develop an idea to not only solve some of our common childcare problems, but also earn extra money doing it. This solution helps you run your childcare center at optimum levels and fill unused spots. It benefits your families and your center earns extra revenue too.
Hoppingin let’s you earn from empty spots at your daycare, by selling them to parents who need extra days.
Most center directors find dealing with parents looking to add days as a nuisance. The management of on demand care can be frustrating. Oftentimes, we can end up even losing out on income when we fail to record a day a family adds. With Hoppingin, you can display your daycare’s availability and let parents book the extra time they need. It lists your open spots and handles the booking and collection, taking the headache out of added care requests.
With Hoppingin your childcare center can:
- Earn money from empty spots at your daycare
- Get new customers
- Offer an easy drop in system
- Help fill those summer camp spots
- Optional: Tuition based parents can report absences and get a partial tuition credit when someone else books that spot.
Want your pot of gold?
This was helpful to me.
This was good information.