Impact
Since 2009, Goodstart Early Years has:
- provided 10.3 million children and their families early childhood education and care
- employed and trained over 15,000 employees and 1,500 teachers.
Goodstart outperforms the sector in serving First Nations children, children with disability and children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Vision and objectives
Goodstart Early Learning is Australia’s largest provider of early childhood education and care. It operates more than 600 centres across Australia and delivers services to close to 70,000 children.
Goodstart started from the collapse of ABC Learning in 2008, the largest childcare provider in Australia. Four not-for-profit organisations – including SVA – saw the collapse as a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
We believe that if every child has access to quality early learning, it has the potential to transform Australia.
Role we played
We are one of the founding organisations of Goodstart Early Learning. Together with Mission Australia and The Benevolent Society, we formed the syndicate in November 2008. Brotherhood of St Laurence joined in September 2009.
We became the driver, the convener and the facilitator of the syndicate and the acquisition. We:
- managed the commercial deal
- helped find highly sought advisory support with no or low upfront fees
- became the key capital raiser.
We worked across public, private and community sectors with the other syndicate members to build a group of partners and investors committed to high quality early childhood.
The mix and sources of capital that we organised was a first for the not-for-profit sector in Australia.
Outcome
In December 2009, the syndicate was announced as the preferred bidder for its offer of $95 million for 678 centres.
Since then, Goodstart Early Learning has provided over 10.3 million children and their families with early childhood education and care.
Meet the team
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Director, Funds Advisory Biljana Nikolova
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Director, Early Childhood Emma Sydenham