The City of Fort Collins is accepting applications for the 2024 Childcare System Support Grant.
Donor Name: City of Fort Collins
State: Colorado
City: Fort Collins
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 09/26/2023
Size of the Grant: $15,000
Grant Duration: 1 year
Details:
The City will award a portion of these funds to eligible organizations that offer early childhood education and school-age childcare programming in Fort Collins that address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Funding Focus Areas
- All projects supported with funding must prioritize services towards students who were impacted or disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- These funds are specifically for activities that build critical capacity within the local childcare system in response to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Fort Collins community and as recognized in the Fort Collins Recovery Plan.
- This grant opportunity will exclusively fund projects that are currently leading or will develop direct service programs that advance:
- Fee subsidies for income-qualified families receiving early childcare education (ECE) and/or school age care
- Physical spaces for new childcare or early childhood education services
- Renovations to existing childcare spaces to improve quality and safety
- Childcare workforce recruitment, training and retention (classroom teachers and staff)
- Mental health resources
- Accessibility resources for vulnerable populations.
Funding Information
- The total available funding is approximately $400,000 and will likely be distributed among multiple Subrecipients.
- There is currently no maximum requested funding amount. However, the minimum requested funding amount is $15,000.
- Subrecipients will be reimbursed for eligible expenses through a reimbursement request.
Funding Period
The funding period is January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024.
Eligible Expenses & Activities
Funding awards may only be used to cover costs that:
- Are necessary expenditures incurred to advance student-focused programming developed in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
- Were incurred during the period that begins on January 1, 2024 and ends on December 31, 2024.
- Were not already offset or recovered by any other designated funding sources.
- All procurements of goods and services by Subrecipients using the federal grant funds must be executed in accordance with 2 CFR 200.317 through 200.327.
Examples of Eligible Programming Activities (not limited to):
- Early Childhood Education (ECE) Substitute Teacher Pools
- Employee Assistance Programs for ECE Workforce
- Collective Benefits for ECE Workforce
- Mental health resources for children and youth
- Accessibility resources such as language access, transportation support, licensing courses in Spanish, etc.
- Expansion of subsidized school age spots
Projects that support community-wide or system level approaches will be prioritized.
Examples of Eligible Expenses (not limited to):
- Personnel (direct service staff & program management staff whose time is substantially dedicated to support eligible activities related to the funded program)
- Program materials
- Transportation for students
- Background checks
- Direct client assistance, such as fee subsidies for families
- Equipment and/or site rentals
- Materials, development costs and/or labor for facility expansion or renovations
- Other program-specific expenses
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible organizations include those that have been directly impacted (costs, demand for services, etc.) by the COVID-19 pandemic and that intend to utilize the ARPA funding to assist Fort Collins residents or households mitigate impacts of the coronavirus pandemic through eligible activities.
- Funds are available for:
- Nonprofit, IRS-designated 501(c)(3) agencies in good standing
- Cooperative groups of organizations with an IRS-designated 501(c)(3) agency serving as its fiscal host
- Childcare providers that are licensed with the State of Colorado and offer sliding scale fees for income qualified families in their regular business operations
- Poudre School District (PSD)
- Other primary and secondary schools contracted with PSD and operating within Fort Collins
- For-profit vendors contracted with PSD that offer sliding scale fees for income qualified families in their regular business operations
- Libraries, museums, higher education institutions or other government entities that offer services for ECE or K-12 students.
For more information, visit City of Fort Collins.
