I need help.
For those who haven’t been following this movement, I’ve spent the past three years analyzing babies in the workplace--business programs in which parents can bring their babies to work with them every day and care for the babies while doing their jobs, generally until the babies are six to eight months of age. I founded the Parenting in the Workplace Institute in December of 2007, and we’ve had tremendous media and public interest in this work since then (Time Magazine, People Magazine, USA Today, and many others--and there are a couple of huge pieces to come in the near future). We now have a list of more than 115 companies that actively allow babies to come to work (affecting more than 1,300 babies to date)--and in every organization with even basic guidelines, these programs work incredibly well and provide extensive benefits for businesses (and for families, of course) with almost no costs for the organizations.
We have all the materials and resources ready for businesses to use to start successful programs. We’ve already helped several companies to start new, highly-effective policies. My books about babies in the workplace are finally done. We have the attention of the media. Put simply, we have an inexpensive, proven solution for core work and family issues that could make life dramatically better for millions of families and thousands of businesses--particularly in the current economic climate. Parenting in the workplace--and the fact that it works when structured well--could quite literally revolutionize work and family balance around the world.
The problem is that I have no idea how to get support for this work so that I can really make this take off. I stumbled onto the babies-at-work concept three years ago. It became my passion because of tremendously painful experiences in my own family that would have been avoided if I had had this option. I want to do whatever I can to prevent other families from experiencing the difficulties we did. Our Institute is in a position to help millions of people. And it’s driving me crazy that we have this tremendous opportunity to change the world--but I’m spending 90% of my time working on other things. I’m working as a legal secretary and doing freelance transcription--because those things pay the bills and enable me to support my two daughters.
I’ve been talking to major organizations around the country for months trying to find one that wants to partner with us (and that wants to share in the media interest that is almost certain to come once we help more companies to start babies-at-work programs) so we can launch our babies-at-work pilot initiative on a large scale. I’ve had lots of interest and made lots of great contacts, but they haven't been in a position to offer funding. I have a detailed proposal all written up and ready to go--I just don’t know who else might be interested in it and be in a position to get this going. If I could figure out how to effectively market my books, that would help solve the problem, since income from the books would free up more time to focus on this work. But I’m at a loss. I understand babies in the workplace and I understand how to help companies to start successful programs. But I apparently don’t understand how to raise money.
So, I’m kind of putting this out there. I don’t usually talk about problems--I tend to focus on the positive in life. But I am running out of time, for various reasons--as are millions of families and businesses that could benefit from adopting these programs.
I would be immensely grateful for any ideas.
