Ann Vandervliet

Ann Vandervliet is the executive director of South Carolina First Steps, a state agency and nonprofit committed to ensuring that all of South Carolina's children are prepared for success in school. As the leader of the state's Early Childhood Advisory Council, Ann is also strengthening the public, private, and nonprofit systems that support families and young children from birth to age five.

With nearly 30 years of experience in nonprofit management and systems development, Ann has a proven track record of raising and strategically directing significant public and private funding to enhance early childhood care and education.

Most recently, she led the Guilford County Partnership for Children, part of North Carolina’s nationally recognized Smart Start network. In this role, Ann led efforts to stabilize the childcare workforce by reinstating WAGE$ in Guilford County, a critical salary supplement program. She also facilitated agreements to braid funds between multiple organizations to address credentialing challenges resulting from new state mandates.

Previously, as the founding director of Smart Beginnings (now the Center for Early Success) in Southside Virginia, Ann secured the largest private investment in school readiness in Virginia at that time. Under her leadership, local performance on the state's pre-literacy assessment improved by 50% over a three-year period and remained stable over the next seven years.

As a program officer for the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation, she built the initial operating infrastructure for Smart Beginnings coalitions across 22 cities and counties. Ann has also held leadership positions with Nash-Rocky Mount Schools and Easter Seals South Carolina. Since 2017, she has taught nonprofit financial leadership and social enterprise at Duke University.

Ann has chaired the Danville Public Schools Foundation Board, served as a delegate to Virginia’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, and facilitated the Federal Reserve of Virginia’s Regional School Readiness Roundtable. She was also selected as a representative for the Frontiers of Innovation Learning Community at Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child.

Ann holds a bachelor's degree in international studies from the University of South Carolina.

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