Overview
When New Mexico’s governor announced in September 2025 that universal, no-cost child care for all families who want it would be the state’s official policy moving forward, it marked an exciting moment in the state and across the country. Behind it was more than a decade of on-the-ground advocacy, coalition building and policy work.
Using general operating support from Impact Fellows Action Fund since 2022, NMVC Action Fund has deployed 501(c)(4) legislative and electoral tools to help elect early childhood champions, advance early childhood legislation, and build the collective will needed to turn policy aspirations into reality.
New Mexico’s universal child care announcement is a powerful demonstration of what becomes possible when a strong foundation of traditional advocacy is matched with 501(c)(4) tools to create lasting change.
The Big Win: New Mexico as a National Model
The announcement was unambiguous: New Mexico would begin offering no-cost child care to all families starting immediately. For advocates who had spent years working toward this moment, it was both a victory and a validation of a strategy that combined rigorous policy development with targeted electoral and legislative advocacy.
“This is really the culmination of truly more than 15 years of work, both on the 501(c)(3) side as well as the 501(c)(4) side,” said James Jimenez of NMVC Action Fund.
Impact Fellows Action Fund’s investment in NMVC Action Fund helped accelerate early childhood efforts that had been building in New Mexico for years. The result is a policy achievement that advocates across the country are now looking to as a model for what is possible when the right strategies align over the long term.
A Decade of Building the Foundation
The policy and advocacy infrastructure behind New Mexico’s announcement didn’t emerge overnight. This has been years in the making, with advocates advancing incremental wins for more than a decade.
Key milestones tell the story of progress that NMVC Action Fund and its 501(c)(3) partner, New Mexico Voices for Children, were advancing:
- 2019: Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 22, creating the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department. New Mexico became one of only four states with a department entirely dedicated to early childhood.
- 2021: Early childhood advocates and coalitions fought for guaranteed funding through the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund as the foundation for a long-term revenue stream.
- 2022: New Mexico voters approved a constitutional amendment by an overwhelming margin, making the state the first in the nation to guarantee a right to early childhood education with dedicated funding to support it.
- 2025: Governor Lujan Grisham announces universal, no-cost child care for every family in New Mexico—a first in the nation.
501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) Working Together
New Mexico’s path to universal child care is a case study in what aligned 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) strategies can achieve.
NMVC Action Fund and New Mexico Voices for Children operate as complementary forces. New Mexico Voices for Children is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works to improve child well-being through rigorous policy analysis and development. NMVC Action Fund is its 501(c)(4) counterpart, built to take that work into the electoral and legislative arena.
- 501(c)(3) partners built the research base, developed policy models and sustained public engagement over more than a decade.
- 501(c)(4) electoral and legislative advocacy, supported by Impact Fellows Action Fund, targeted a handful of legislators blocking progress and elected champions ready to advance early childhood priorities.
The sequence mattered. Even after years of strong policy development, legislative leaders were blocking the path to guaranteed funding for early childhood programs. That’s where 501(c)(4) advocacy came in to help create the conditions for early childhood legislation to advance.
That electoral and legislative advocacy work paid off. With new early childhood champions in the legislature, the path to guaranteed funding cleared and the legislation passed.
From there, the funding measure went to voters, who approved it by a large margin. That vote became the financial backbone of New Mexico’s early childhood system and set the stage for the governor’s universal child care announcement.
This is why aligned 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) strategies are essential for large-scale, lasting systems change. Together, they take a movement from aspiration to implementation.
Building on the Momentum
New Mexico’s universal child care announcement is a major victory, but the work is far from over.
The same political conditions that created this win can shift again. Champions must be elected and protected. And the advocacy infrastructure that delivered this victory must stay active.
“The reason why it’s kind of not a done deal is because the legislature has the power of the purse,” said Jacob Vigil of New Mexico Voices for Children. “They’re the ones that have to appropriate the funds for this initiative.”
Sustaining and scaling access will depend on continued commitment across three fronts:
- Ongoing investment to fund programs at full scale
- Legislative oversight to hold lawmakers accountable
- Continued electoral engagement to protect and build on what’s been won
For NMVC Action Fund and its partners, the work continues.
Transformational Change in New Mexico
What’s ultimately at stake in New Mexico goes far beyond a single policy announcement.
“We really are talking about transformational change in our state,” said James Jimenez of NMVC Action Fund, “by allowing our youngest learners to be successful even before they get to kindergarten, but then through K-12 and into college and beyond.”
That is the vision—and in New Mexico, it is no longer just a vision. It is policy. And it got there because advocates were able to build the legislative and electoral muscle to complement years of policy development and coalition building. That is the model for what sustained 501(c)(3) policy work and 501(c)(4) legislative and electoral advocacy can deliver for children and families.