Affordable and accessible childcare: Michigan's Tri-Share Program
Published on: August 13, 2025
- Issue Areas
- Early childhood
MORE ABOUT THE STRATEGY USED IN THIS CASE STUDY Child care and early education programs, Early childhood workforce supports
At-a-Glance
Summary
- In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of affordable, accessible childcare presented significant workforce challenges in Grand Rapids, MI. In addition to the challenges that families with young children faced, employers experienced significant difficulty attracting and retaining the right talent. The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce engaged its members and formed a coalition with business owners, state lawmakers and other stakeholders to solicit new ideas. In 2021, with the pandemic heightening the childcare crisis, Michigan’s legislature created a first-of-its-kind pilot program with bipartisan support: the MI Tri-Share Child Care Program (Tri-Share).
After being piloted in three regions beginning in 2021, Tri-Share grew into a statewide program and has seen continued bipartisan support. The state’s annual funding for the program has more than doubled since 2021, as has the number of participating employers.
Through MI Tri-Share, an employer, employee, and the state of Michigan all pay an equal share of the cost of licensed childcare. Any employer, regardless of sector or size, can join the program, which is entirely voluntary. Businesses have flexibility: they can choose the number of employees they’re willing to support with the benefit. The eligibility of employees is income-based.
Keys to the success of MI Tri-Share include broad consensus around the urgent need to address the childcare crisis; a simple funding model that is easy to explain to prospective employers and employees; buy-in from Michigan’s business community; a regionalized and flexible approach that allowed the program to evolve; and sustained funding.
Although there were obstacles to MI Tri-Share’s success—including initial uncertainty among businesses about the program’s longevity, and limited funding for marketing and recruiting—the program has emerged as a national model. With a lack of affordable childcare challenging communities around the country, four other states (as of publication date) have now established similar programs in which employers contribute to the cost of employees’ childcare.
Results and Accomplishments
251+
The number of Michigan employers participating in MI Tri-Share. This is more than double the number compared to 2021, the program’s inaugural year.
$8.6 million
Amount families have saved in childcare tuition since MI Tri-Share launched in 2021.
97%
The percentage of families that said participating in the program improved their financial stability.
Helping employers attract and retain talent: A large majority of Michigan businesses choosing to participate in MI Tri-Share say that the program has been a competitive differentiator. A 2024 evaluation found 71% of employers saw improved employee retention, and 80% believe it will be helpful to retain employees in the future. Nearly three-quarters (73%) believe it will be a helpful recruiting tool in the future. And about two-thirds (64%) said the program helps them compete against other employers.
Helping employees keep working: By substantially reducing the cost of childcare, MI Tri-Share makes it less likely that participating employees will leave their jobs and/or the overall workforce. 81% of employees said the program can or did help them achieve career goals, and about the same percentage (85%) strongly agreed that the program made it more likely they would keep working and stay in their current job.
Reducing working parents’ financial stress: With employees effectively experiencing a two-thirds discount on licensed childcare tuition, participants almost universally experience greater financial stability. For working parents, childcare cost savings help to offset the costs of other essentials such as food and home maintenance. Nearly all participating employees—98%—reported improved financial stability and security in their lives because of the program.
Stabilizing childcare providers: MI Tri-Share has helped businesses of all sizes across many sectors, but benefits have been particularly notable in the childcare sector. (Early childhood education providers are eligible for the program like any other employer). Many providers experience financial instability and see high employee turnover rates due to their low pay scales. More than half (57%) of participating licensed childcare providers said the program improved the organization’s financial stability. And providers that offered the MI Tri-Share benefit to their employees were more likely to say that participating in the program boosted recruitment and retention, compared to providers who did not offer the benefit, an evaluation found.
Solidifying a bipartisan consensus: MI Tri-Share, which Michigan’s business community supported from its inception, has shown that childcare does not need to be a partisan issue. Funding for the program has been approved by the state legislature on a bipartisan basis every year since 2020, showing that when elected officials work across the aisle hand-in-hand with a coalition involving businesses and other advocates, innovative solutions can emerge.
Becoming a national model: With a lack of affordable licensed childcare challenging communities around the country, the MI Tri-Share program has emerged nationally as an innovative solution for addressing the crisis. Since MI Tri-Share’s launch, four other states have established similar programs (as of publication date): Kentucky (2022), North Carolina (2023), New York (2024) and West Virginia (2025). Other states have seen bills replicating the shared-funding approach introduced into the legislature.
Overview
What was the challenge?
Workforce instability: In 2017, a survey conducted by the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce identified childcare affordability and accessibility as a significant workforce challenge facing businesses in the southwestern Michigan region. Across the state, workforce turnover rates due to new parents leaving their jobs were carrying steep costs for employers. (Replacement costs related to turnover, such as recruiting and training new employees, were estimated at over $1 billion annually in Michigan in 2023.)
Employment instability for working parents: A lack of affordable, accessible and high-quality childcare options imposes a heavy burden on working Michiganders. Some young parents are forced to change jobs, reduce working hours or leave the workforce entirely because of the expense. A 2023 survey found that 32% of surveyed Michigan parents with children under the age of six had experienced employment changes due to childcare issues—and 18% were planning to leave the workforce during the next 12 months.
Economic losses due to childcare challenges: The unaffordability and inaccessibility of childcare–and the impact that it was having on parents’ workforce participation–was imposing significant costs on Michigan’s economy. A 2023 study found the annual loss for Michigan’s economy to be $2.9 billion. The annual costs to businesses specifically related to employee turnover and absenteeism costs amount to $2.3 billion. And childcare inaccessibility was having a particularly detrimental effect on women’s employment trajectory, with a study finding a 20% employment gap between mothers with children under 5 and men in Michigan.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the childcare crisis: The public health crisis (which included provider shutdowns in early 2020) increased the severity of child-care challenges across the state by increasing the deficit of affordable childcare providers. Many employees had to step out of the workforce to care for their children at home, heightening employers’ awareness of how reliant their workforce is on the existence of quality childcare providers.
What was the solution?
Designing a new shared-funding model: Recognizing the childcare-related challenges that families and employers faced, a coalition convened by the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce began advocating for new approaches in 2019. With support from the business community, coalition member State Rep. Greg VanWoerkom proposed funding to create a new public-private pilot program to split the cost of childcare equally between a parent/caregiver, their participating employer, and the state government. A business of any size and in any sector can choose to participate in the program—it is not mandatory. In practice MI Tri-Share functions as an opt-in benefit employers can offer employees to substantially reduce their cost of childcare, and potentially reduce workforce turnover and attract new talent.
Launching the program in three pilot regions: MI Tri-Share was not a statewide program initially. The program was piloted in three distinct parts of Michigan, one rural, one suburban and one urban. The suburban region included six western counties, with a hub administrator located in Muskegon; the urban region included eight eastern counties with a hub in Saginaw; and the rural region encompassed 13 northern counties with a hub in Traverse City. A goal behind this regionalized pilot approach was that best practices and lessons learned would emerge from distinct parts of the state, informing the program’s evolution and growth.
Decentralizing program functions:MI Tri-Share is not a fully centralized state-run program. An initial pilot period allowed regional hub facilitator organizations to try different approaches to marketing and administering the program. Backend administration was centralized in 2024, but regional hubs continue to handle MI Tri-Share marketing and recruiting. A guiding principle is that local “hub” organizations know the business landscape in their area best, and therefore are best positioned to engage with and recruit local employers to the program and respond to changing needs.
Giving businesses flexibility: MI Tri-Share is highly adaptable to an employer’s specific needs and situation. Beyond meeting two requirements—committing to paying one-third of licensed childcare costs for at least one child of at least one employee for an entire year, and not dictating where an employee obtains licensed childcare—each business has a high level of flexibility in how it participates. For example, the employer may choose to offer MI Tri-Share benefits to only one department in the business, or at only one business location, or only after employees are employed 90 days.
Who was involved?
Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce: The organization played a central role in catalyzing change. It formed a broad coalition of stakeholders, including business owners and state lawmakers, that developed the Tri-Share model and its regional hub approach. They pushed for pilot funding for the new program.
Employers: Business owners have been at the center of the MI Tri-Share story from the beginning. Through the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Association of Michigan, employers made clear that the state’s lack of affordable childcare was an urgent workforce challenge. And they supported a solution through which businesses can help working parents.
Elected officials: State legislators Representative Greg VanWoerkom and Senator Curt VanderWall, both Republicans and connected to the Grand Rapid Chamber of Commerce coalition, championed the pilot program and later statewide expansion to address the state’s childcare challenges. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, supported MI Tri-Share from its inception.
Michigan Women’s Commission (MWC): Gov. Whitmer directed the MWC to launch the MI Tri-Share pilot program after funding was allocated in the state’s FY 2021 budget. The commission, which had surveyed Michigan women to understand COVID 19 pandemic-related childcare challenges, chose facilitator hub organizations through a public RFP process. MWC successfully managed the MI Tri-Share program from its pilot through expansion and evaluation until 2024 when the program was moved through executive order to Governor Whitmer’s newly created Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential.
Childcare providers: These organizations participate in MI Tri-Share in two ways: By caring for the children of parents enrolled in the program, and by enrolling in the program as an employer.
Facilitator hub organizations: These regional entities play a lead role in marketing the MI Tri-Share program to local businesses. In the pilot phase, the MI Tri-Share facilitator hubs also determined the household income-based eligibility of employees, helped connect participating employees to a licensed provider that met the family’s needs and processed invoices. (This backend program administration was transitioned to a statewide administrative partner in 2024.)
What factors drove success?
Business community buy-in: The MI Tri-Share concept was co-designed by businesses through the Grand Rapids Chamber. The business community was in favor from the beginning, and the need for new solutions became more urgent when the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the childcare crisis. Clear support by employers helped ensure both bipartisan support for funding and program participation. Continued bipartisan support has ensured consistent year-to-year funding for the program in the state’s annual budget.
Simplicity: The roots of the childcare affordability crisis may be complex, but the MI Tri-Share model—businesses, parents and the state splitting the cost of childcare equally—is easy to explain to businesses, employees and participating providers. The math is straightforward and predictable. This helped facilitator hub organizations engage and enroll businesses, employees and providers.
Flexibility to evolve while recognizing best practices: The program was designed with regional hubs to allow different organizations to tailor their program recruitment and management approaches to local needs. When the downsides of having each hub administer the program became clear, the state sought a statewide administrator. After a formal RFP process, the United Way of Northwest Michigan (UWNW Michigan) was selected to be MI Tri-Share’s statewide administrative partner. As one of the three initial facilitator hubs during the pilot, UWNW Michigan had created its own custom software to manage the program’s complex invoice payment and collection flow and to efficiently track participation data. The system proved it could be easily scaled up to handle statewide administrative duties while still providing employers, employees and providers with a high level of customer service.
Childcare providers’ buy-in: Childcare providers have benefited more than anticipated—a majority of participating providers say the program has improved their organization’s financial stability. Participating providers receive MI Tri-Share payments reliably and on-time. And many providers choose to enroll as employers in the program because of the financial and workforce benefits. Offering the MI Tri-Share benefit has helped improve talent recruiting and retention at many organizations, a longstanding challenge in the sector.
Multi-year funding: Ongoing legislative support – as evidenced by moving the program from a one-time appropriation to a dedicated line item in the state budget – has helped allay fears and enabled participation for more employers.
What were the major obstacles?
Uncertainty about program longevity: The initial pilot nature of the program caused hesitation among employers, who were uncertain about its future and leery of offering employees a new benefit that may not last long. Hubs, state managers, and legislators had to alleviate business’ concerns.
Limited marketing and recruiting dollars: Each regional facilitator hub organization receives a fixed annual amount of funding to facilitate local participation. The hub chooses how to use that funding to best promote MI Tri-Share locally, with most needing to use the grant to support staffing needs for the program. Because of this, there are limited funds remaining to build paid marketing campaigns. The state has dedicated limited funding directly to support marketing campaigns.
Administrative complexity and inconsistencies: The process of recruiting employers to participate, vetting employees for eligibility, enrolling families, educating providers about the model, and collecting contributions from multiple sources to make one payment is administratively complex and nuanced. Also, once participating, employers may change benefit parameters, employees may change jobs or change providers, and children may age out of care, among other diverse variables. Allowing all of this administration to happen at a regional level also resulted in inconsistent and inequitable program delivery and data tracking. For example, during the first few years of the program, each hub organization developed its own approach to managing participants and payments in their region. Some decided to charge participating employers an administrative fee, while others did not.
Timeline
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce assembles a statewide coalition to address the state’s childcare affordability and accessibility challenges. It includes the Small Business Association of Michigan, childcare advocates and state legislators. By the end of the year the coalition has coalesced around the Tri-Share model proposed by member State Rep. Greg VanWoerkom.
State Rep. VanWoerkom proposes $1.1 million in the FY2021 state budget to pilot the MI Tri-Share program, referred to in the appropriation as the “Child care facilitator pilot project.” A bipartisan majority approves the funding, requiring that three pilot regional hubs are created in the state.
MI Tri-Share launches with three pilot regions (each overseen by a hub facilitator organization) across the state, one urban, one suburban and one rural. The Michigan Women’s Commission (MWC), part of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, develops, rolls out and manages the pilot program.
With bipartisan support, the state legislature approves $2.5 million for the Tri-Share program in its FY2022 budget, allowing MWC to expand the program into additional regions through new hub facilitator organizations. The program is still identified as a pilot in the budget.
Bipartisan support for funding continues with a $2.5 million appropriation in the state’s FY2023 budget, which for the first time refers to the program as the "Tri-Share child care program." Additional regional facilitator hubs are added to the program. Public Sector Consultants conducts an evaluation of the pilot program.
State funding for the program is increased to $3.4 million in the FY2024 budget—triple the program’s initial pilot-year funding.
The Michigan Women’s Commission issues a request for proposals (RFP) to establish a statewide administrative partner for the MI Tri-Share program. United Way of Northwest Michigan (UWNW Michigan), which was one of the initial three hub facilitator organizations, is awarded the grant, largely based on their successes and administration software developed as a pilot regional facilitator hub.
UWNW Michigan begins its expanded role as MI Tri-Share’s new statewide administrative partner, which includes centralizing payment processing, participant enrollment and data collection. At the same time, MI Tri-Share program management shifts from MWC to the newly created Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP). The program reaches statewide availability, with hubs focusing on regional marketing and recruitment strategies and the statewide administrative partner fielding interest from counties not yet connected to a regional facilitator hub. Public Sector Consultants conducts a comprehensive program evaluation.
All regional facilitator hubs around the state have transitioned their MI Tri-Share data and administration into UWNW Michigan’s customized software. MiLEAP increases the maximum household income level for employee eligibility to 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL)—about $128,600 for a family of four. MiLEAP continues to examine program design and potential opportunities to expand access and participation.
Implementation process
What were the key components of the program’s design?
Framed as a workforce development benefit: Rather than approaching the issue as a childcare program, MI Tri-Share was positioned as a workforce development and retention program available to be provided as a benefit in partnership with employers. This treatment centralized employers as the driving force for participation and growth, and educated more stakeholders about the role childcare accessibility plays in talent recruitment and retention.
Simplicity and predictability for employers: Participating employers commit to paying one-third of the actual licensed child care costs for at least one child of at least one eligible employee for at least one year. Employers decide how many total child care slots to offer employees and how those slots will be allocated to eligible employees.
Family provider choice: Neither the employer nor the state can dictate where the employee obtains licensed childcare. Each employee can choose the licensed Michigan child care that meets their family’s needs.
Income-based employee eligibility: To be eligible for MI Tri-Share, an employee’s household income must fall within a specific threshold defined by the state agency overseeing the program and the employee must be ineligible for Michigan’s federally funded Child Development and Care (CDC) program (commonly called the “child care scholarship”). As of May 2025, the household income threshold for MI Tri-Share is 200-400% of the federal poverty line—about $64,300-128,600 for a family of four.
Localized approaches: Regional facilitator hubs, each handling marketing and outreach activities in different Michigan counties, allow for geography-based flexibility in how businesses are approached and recruited to join the program.
Voluntary on all fronts: No one is required or mandated to participate in MI Tri-Share. Employers opt into the program and set parameters for eligible employee participation. Employees choose to apply for the benefit. The participating employee’s licensed child care provider/s agree to receive that family’s tuition payment via MI Tri-Share.
How did the program ensure universal access?
- MI Tri-Share is available to any employer in Michigan, regardless of its size, sector or location. Any employee working at a participating employer can potentially enroll, if he or she meets the program’s household income-based eligibility requirement, meets any parameters set by the employer, and uses child care licensed in Michigan. MI Tri-Share regional facilitator hubs concentrate on localized outreach, marketing and participant recruitment.
What were the key activities leading up to and following launch?
Setting up the pilot: The Michigan Women’s Commission chose hub facilitator organizations for each of the three pilot regions through a public RFP and fleshed out program details and processes in consultation with stakeholders and childcare and workforce development experts. RFP respondents were required to secure letters of commitment from local businesses to ensure employer relationships from the start.
Expanding statewide and centralizing backend administration: Successful program piloting led to increased state funding. By 2024, funding was more than double the program’s initial level and three initial regional hubs had multiplied to 12. The decision by the state to evolve MI Tri-Share by having one organization act as a statewide administrative partner created consistent policies and processes for all participating employers, regardless of their location in the state. Centralizing backend administration also improved data collection and tracking practices. The statewide administrator manages backend enrollment, invoice payments, participant share collection, data tracking and more, providing consistent policies and program delivery throughout the state. Hubs are now able to focus solely on marketing and recruitment.
Expanding eligibility for program: As the program has grown and proven its value to stakeholders, the state has increased its investment and widened accessibility for more working families. Michigan made the decision to raise the federal poverty line threshold for eligible household income multiple times, so that more employees at participating employers can qualify. This was done in response to clear feedback from employers, childcare providers and employees asking for greater access to the program.
How was the approach funded?
- Annual state budget appropriation: State funding goes beyond paying one-third of child-care costs of participating employees. It also provides funding for recruiting and marketing by MI Tri-Share facilitator hubs across the state, as well as the statewide administrative activities provided by UW-NW Michigan.
- Private foundation support: In its pilot phase, MI Tri-Share also received grants from the Ballmer Group and W.K. Kellogg Foundation to include additional counties in the pilot (with the foundations standing in for the state’s share), as well as to conduct third-party evaluations and support internal staffing to manage the program.
Employers: Participating businesses pay one-third the cost of childcare tuition for participating employees.
- Employees: Eligible parents pay one-third the cost of childcare tuition.
How was the approach measured and refined?
In-depth program evaluations: The state of Michigan hired an outside evaluation—Public Sector Consulting—to conduct two different in-depth evaluations of MI Tri-Share, the first in 2022 covering year one of the pilot phase (PDF here) and the second in 2024 covering the regional expansion and initial program growth (PDF here). These evaluations have been used to support program development, refinement and expansion. For example, they have informed decisions to utilize a statewide administrative partner and to expand program accessibility by raising the program’s household income eligibility threshold.
Ongoing statewide data collection: MI Tri-Share’s statewide administrative partner tracks various metrics to measure the program's success, including: number of participating employers and their size and sectors, the number of children and families supported by the program (both approved to participate and actively using the program at any given time), and the amount spent on tuition by employers and the state—which translates to dollars saved by working parents.