Goodstart Early Learning

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.

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.