Vanessa Freytag forged a 15-year career as a commercial banker, and during that experience sustained her passion for supporting nonprofits, particularly those engaged with issues supporting women.
In 2007, she was named executive director of the
Women’s Fund, a nonprofit that works to improve the lives of Southern Ohio women and girls. Leaning into her corporate experience, Freytag approached the Women’s Fund as a startup business and collaborated with her team to enhance the organization’s advocacy and research, and address women’s economic self-sufficiency as a core focal point.
She was reluctant to apply for that role because she lacked experience in the nonprofit sector but received encouragement from a veteran in the nonprofit world.
Mary Stagaman, then the board chair of the Women’s Fund, engaged Freytag in a pivotal conversation. “I don’t understand why you’re not putting yourself up for this role,” Freytag recalls her saying. “I told her I didn’t think I was qualified.”
At the time, she was volunteering 15 hours a week even with the stress of her banking job and two young children, so the interest was there. “I felt the pull, but I needed the encouragement,” she says.
She had been serving on the board of Women Entrepreneurs Inc. (WEI), which helped women start business in a time when less support existed to provide business education, networking, and funding. “Research showed that women who owned businesses were more likely to reinvest profit back into the business, which provides more growth and job opportunities,” she said.
She credited Marcia Togneri, a self-employed financial planner she met through WEI, as another person who inspired her to hone her leadership skills in the nonprofit world.
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Vanessa Freytag, who retires in June, remarks that nonprofits are particularly susceptible to economically challenging times, but that creativity, cooperation, and resilience honed by those in the field equips them to overcome obstacles.In 2015, she moved to her current role as president and CEO of
4C for Children. The organization, founded in 1972 by a coalition of organizations and private funders, strives to fulfill a simple, yet quite challenging, vision: “To educate and support the adults who care for young children and advocate for public support for quality early education and care for all children.” When she assumed the role, Freytag made it a priority to streamline the mission to help the organization operate efficiently.
“It’s important for an organization to stay focused on its core purpose,” she said. “We determined what our ‘wheelhouse’ was and reviewed every program to make sure what we’re doing was inside it. Whether the organization is two or 100 years old, it’s important for organizations to be honest and understand where they provide the greatest value to the community.”
The organization works with both families to help them connect with child care services and keeps providers up to date with state-of-the-art early childhood education methods. Its approximately $11 million annual budget is funded through a combination of state funding and contributions from local foundations such as the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile Jr. Foundation, Greater Cincinnati Foundation, and United Way of Greater Cincinnati, among others, as well as private donors.
Unlike other industries that require stringent qualifications and licensure, working as a child care provider only requires that the worker hold a high-school diploma. However, the delivery of child care involves extensive regulation, so 4C for Children helps smooth providers’ learning curve with training. Freytag noted the organization logged 57,000 hours of training during 2024 that addresses health, safety, and educational techniques.
She credits the state for developing the public-private partnership of Ohio’s Child Care Resource and Referral Association and the Child Care Resource and Referral Network, which developed the Trauma Informed Care certification program, which educates providers to identify and assist children who’ve experienced developmental trauma, which became more commonplace during COVID-19’s forced isolation.
Child care providers are seeking more help with identifying the lasting impact of isolation, she says. “We develop as humans through interaction, and COVID created a gap with young children. We need strategies to address this.”
4C for Children conducts approximately 500 monthly checks for providers that have vacancies, often done for families with an urgent need for the service. However, as demand continues to surge, supply remains in chronic shortage. Freytag noted that, in other industries, an economy of scale can be reached. However, she quips, “You can’t just stack children in a warehouse.”
“There are very strict ratios for how many care providers are required per child,” she said. “And there’s good reason for that. Children need to socialize, learn, and be kept safe.”
For economically disadvantaged parents, subsidized child care exists, but reimbursement seldom matches the trust cost of the service. And, Freytag noted, that even if subsidies fully funded the service, or if every parent had the means to pay for care, the number of providers is still insufficient. She said that COVID-19 adversely impacted the field on several levels.
“After the chaos of the pandemic, many child care workers moved on to other types of jobs,” she said. “And the isolating conditions created for families by the pandemic had a harmful impact on young children. Ninety percent of a person’s development comes between the ages of zero and three, so the lack of socialization opportunities created by COVID-19 is likely to have long-term, profound effects.”
Hamilton County provided a key assist by allocating American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for 4C for Children’s Child Care Careers program, which has helped attract more than 100 new workers into the field. However, even with this help, there is still a worker shortage, along with the increasing costs that impact other organizations – soaring insurance premiums, rising costs for food, energy, and other raw materials, as well as clients ability to pay.
Freytag noted many enthusiastic, well-intentioned donors want to stipulate that their contributions be spent exclusively for mission-fulfilling work. She made the analogy of dining at a restaurant, enjoying your favorite meal, and then deciding that, because the food was the most memorable part of the experience, to only pay for the chef’s time. Every organization should be mindful of its overhead expenses, but she noted that those functions bolster a nonprofit’s mission fulfillment.
“To hire the best team members to grow a nonprofit and fulfill its mission requires a great HR department to recruit, hire, and train,” she said. “Any organization requires investing in itself to maintain long-term vitality.”
Freytag is appreciative of the generosity of organizations and individuals that have supported 4C and said she’s hopeful that the changes under a new presidential administration won’t adversely impact child care-oriented organizations.
“Parents exist on both sides of the aisle,” she said. “You only get one chance to get it right with a child’s development.”
An invaluable tool for Freytag’s and others’ nonprofit careers has been the Leadership Council for Nonprofits, which helps provide organizational and professional development to its members. Freytag has been on the Leadership Council’s board for four years, and its board president for two.
“The members of the Council provide wonderful support,” she said. “Whether you need a sounding board for important organizational decision, examples of how to conduct better performance reviews, or anything else, they’re a tremendous resource.”
Freytag will be retiring in June. Looking at nonprofits’ future, she has both optimism and concern. She believes nonprofits will continue to be supported as a bedrock for addressing community challenges, and nonprofit leaders are adept at being creative and resilient in addressing them.
“Nonprofits have to play to their strengths. They’re not likely to compete with for-profit companies financially, so it’s key to create a culture that emphasizes flexibility and quality of life.” - Vanessa Freytag, 4C for Children
“Whatever business you’re in, you have to understand its fundamentals. The nonprofit world is best supported by a balance of experience from nonprofit and for-profit roles,” she said.
Freytag said that economic challenges, such as the pandemic or 2008 downturn, tend to have a greater impact on nonprofits, citing that many people who give are donating from household discretionary funds, which can vanish amid hardship.
Even with ongoing challenges looming, Freytag encourages those with a desire to enter nonprofit work to learn more: “Get involved, volunteer, and learn what you’re passionate about. I’m grateful for my work experience in the for-profit world, but nonprofit work has given me incredible fulfillment.”
Support for the A Force for Good series is provided by Leadership Council for Nonprofits, with a mission to maximize the impact of nonprofit organizations, develop their leaders and strengthen the regional nonprofit community.