Georgia Mjartan is the Executive Director of South Carolina First Steps and the South Carolina Early Childhood Advisory Council. A state government agency and nonprofit, this public-private partnership directly reaches over 50,000 children birth through age five annually. Through the ECAC, Mjartan leads a multi-agency coalition of state and federally funded public entities serving young children. In this role, she pioneered the development of a first-in-the-nation technology solution that streamlines eligibility and application for dozens of publicly funded early childhood programs, attracting over 100,000 unique visitors in its first year and successfully linking 79% of users to programs for which they are eligible.
For over a decade, Mjartan led Our House, a large-scale anti-poverty program in Arkansas that empowers extremely low-income and homeless families and individuals to succeed in the workforce, school, and life. Under her leadership, the organization expanded housing and shelter and grew to include homelessness prevention, two-gen whole family supports, a quality-rated early learning center, an out-of-school time program, workforce training and re-entry from incarceration programs, adult education, and financial literacy.
Mjartan has a Master of Science in Public Affairs from the University of Ulster (UK) and bachelor’s degrees in English and Political Science from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is a recipient of the Ascend Fellowship at the Aspen Institute, the Fannie Mae Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Mitchell Scholarship for graduate study.