Birmingham startup Moxi promises a new, on-demand approach to child care

Cori Fain-Forrest created Moxi, a Birmingham-based child care center and app, after battling for options for her own son.

In 2022, almost 85,000 Alabama families needed access to child care but had no affordable, quality options in their communities, according to the Women’s Foundation of Alabama. Mothers across Alabama have lost their jobs, cut their working hours and even filed for bankruptcy because of the lack of child care. Advocates like Fain-Forrest are working on possible solutions.

“The burden of child care, a lot of that mental labor, the access, and affordability, the management of child care and how inefficient it is, often falls on women…all these inefficiencies means a lot of time and energy that moms are pouring into managing child care,” Fain-Forrest said. “We built Moxi thinking about the parents’ perspective and what they need.”

The Moxi community center and child care facility is set to open in Birmingham’s Lakeview neighborhood in the winter of 2024. The center offers an on-demand approach to child care: Parents can book time and space when their family needs it.

The company is geared for parents who need full-time child care as well as those who need a safe place to drop a child on short notice while they run errands or go to an event.

“This industry, it’s one that touches the lives of so many families and it has a deep impact on the decisions that mothers are making on how to raise and manage their families. I ultimately felt like there was room for innovation and creativity in this industry,” Fain-Forrest said.

The center will provide full-time and on-demand care for up to 125 children, ages 12 weeks to 5 years old. It will also feature amenities for parents such as coworking space, an on-site gym and events.

The center’s services will be based on play-based learning. Programming will accommodate individual child and family needs. Moxi is still working on getting licenses from the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

Cori’s story

“From the very first day of my working career, before I even had a driver’s license, I worked in child care,” said Fain-Forrest, who as a teenager cared for newborns and toddlers.

She later worked internationally for governments and non-profits, learning about economic and community development. But she felt drawn back to Birmingham.

“I was feeling this big draw to do the work I had been doing but in a community that was mine that we could plant roots in, grow our lives, our family.”

In 2022, after returning home and starting work for a startup, Fain-Forrest got pregnant with her first child, Otto.

Panic quickly overcame excitement as it became clear that she might have trouble finding a safe, reliable place for her son when she went back to work.

“I started looking for childcare. I have this vivid memory that I started making phone calls to child care centers, and one or two phone calls in I’m thinking, ‘this is weird, maybe it’s just these two centers.’ Three more phone calls and I start getting concerned,” Fain-Forrest said.

“By phone call eight, nine, 10, every center is telling me that they have hundreds of children on the waiting list ahead of me. It will probably be two to three years before we find something. Some of them even discouraged me from applying…I was in full panic mode.”

Fain-Forrest gave birth to her son and celebrated his first birthday, but still had no reliable, full-time childcare.

“We would pick up the phone, leave a voicemail, go through a manual process, go on their website, download the forms, email them. We mailed in paper checks to a lot of these places. The money came out of our account and then they wouldn’t answer our emails or phone calls. So we weren’t even able to figure out where we were on the waitlist. Hundreds of dollars, hours, days of effort,” Fain-Forrest said.

In search for a solution to her child care crisis, Fain-Forrest interviewed directors of child care centers, dozens of child care workers, advocates and more than 100 parents across the city – many who had similar stories to hers.

“Through all of that time I just kept thinking ‘why is there just so little innovation happening here in this industry,'” Fain-Forrest said. “All that came together and gave me the idea for Moxi.”

With the center opening by the end of the year, Fain-Forrest said she looks forward to watching her son play and learn at Moxi.

How Moxi works

Parents can sign up for an annual paid Moxi membership on their website. The Moxi child care app will be available for download later this year.

More than 300 families have joined the waiting list, according to the company.

Membership gives parents access to the facility, including the gym and coworking space, and both full-time and on-demand child care.

Which can range from half days to full days. Full-time that can be booked Monday through Friday from 7:30 am to 6 pm for up to a year.

On-demand care can be adjusted to a family’s needs including recurring, once-a-week care, or just a half-day with as little as two hours’ notice. Families will simply book through the app.

Fain said she believes Moxi will be more than just a child care center; she hopes it will serve as a community for mothers whose child needs have been neglected and overlooked.

“Moxi was inspired by my own journey into motherhood. For me, Birmingham just really lacked that support for mothers. How amazing would it be if a child care center became more than just drop off and pick up for kids and a burden for mothers. That is what we’re building,” Fain-Forrest said. “Moxi will work better for moms, and parents, and childcare workers, the entire community.”