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• Government sets the rules and funds the floor. Federal, state, and local agencies administer Medicaid, WIC, early intervention, home visiting, and child welfare — and elected officials hold the policy levers behind nearly everything else.

• Healthcare systems and providers deliver the prenatal, delivery, postpartum, and pediatric care at the center of the first 1,000 days. Hospitals, the county's largest care institutions, are examined through our Hospital Watch initiative.

• Anchor institutions — public libraries, colleges and universities, and religious institutions — are the place-based organizations that cannot leave. They hold the community's trust, reach families that formal systems miss, and offer permanence that grant-funded programs lack.

• Foundations and nonprofit organizations are the connective tissue of the ecosystem — the funders, the specialized maternal-child health groups, the food and basic-needs providers, and the parent-led peer networks that reach families directly, often in the gaps formal programs leave behind.

• Educational institutions support early childhood development through school readiness, family programming, and the workforce pipeline that staffs the entire system.

• The private sector — grocers, employers, farmers' markets, and local business — shapes food access, household economic stability, and whether working parents have paid leave and supportive workplaces.

• Civic and faith-based organizations provide food pantries, counseling, community meals, and forums for dialogue, while promoting the social cohesion that helps families flourish.

• Media — including Moonshot Press and local outlets — informs and engages the community, amplifies family voices, highlights what works, and promotes transparency and accountability across the whole ecosystem.