The Stranahan Foundation’s Early Childhood Education grant program aims to improve access to high-quality early care and education for young children, particularly those from low-income families.
Donor Name: Stranahan Foundation
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 12/03/2025
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: 3 Years
Details:
The spring 2026 funding cycle will support nonprofit organizations and projects that align with the Innovation and Proven Professional Development (PD) strategies. These strategies specifically fund professional development organizations, early childhood networks, institutions of higher education, and local and state early childhood departments that are designing and/or implementing larger-scale models (at 5+ early childhood programs).
This cycle has up to $1.5 million in funding available to support innovation and proven professional development proposals. They are exclusively interested in projects that address the highest needs identified in the recent engagement with partners and the gaps in the learning portfolios. The 2026 priorities include:
- Affordable and scalable instructional coaching models. Research indicates that one of the most effective ways to improve educational quality is through ongoing, personalized, and collaborative coaching for educators. However, the quality and efficacy of coaching can vary significantly, and intensive coaching can be both costly and time-consuming. Therefore, they aim to support initiatives that test or expand more affordable and scalable options for high-quality, individualized coaching in ECE classrooms.
- Leadership development and retention models. Strong, qualified ECE leaders are crucial for retaining high-quality educators, delivering exceptional care, engaging families, and operating effective organizations. Currently, access to leadership development programs is limited or inconsistent. This cycle, they aim to support models for two key groups:
- Elementary School Principals: With the growth of publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs, elementary school principals are taking on more responsibility for supporting early childhood educators. Research shows many feel unprepared to take on this role and face challenges in integrating these educators into K-3+ systems. Stranahan is interested in leadership support and development models that address this gap.
- Leaders from under-resourced communities: With increasing funding challenges and rising educator burnout, Stranahan wants to support models that help site-level directors and program leaders from underserved communities navigate these challenges and promote high-quality learning environments. This includes models that include:
- Content in three or more key areas, including pedagogy and instruction, administration and operations, personal development, team and interpersonal skills, and policy and community engagement.
- Formal and informal learning opportunities that are practical and at least six months (preferably more).
- Network or community-wide substitute or floater teacher pools. Due to workforce shortages and teacher burnout, the Foundation has recently invested in supporting high-quality substitute and floater teacher pools within specific providers or programs. However, they are eager to explore how this could be implemented on a larger scale through a community or network-based approach. Successful applicants must demonstrate that substitutes and floaters are or will be trained in high-quality teaching practices beyond basic health and safety and must connect the design of their models to teaching and learning goals.
- Reinvestment funding for recent Stranahan grantees. Stranahan has allocated a portion of the funding in this cycle to support recent grantees (2020 or later) who have received funding to pilot innovative professional development models or adapt proven ones. They are especially interested in proposals that aim to:
- Refine or expand existing models based on insights gained from earlier funded work.
- Strengthen the evidence base through more rigorous evaluation.
Additional consideration will be given to organizations that best meet the overall program priorities, including being able to demonstrate:
- An understanding of how race, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, and other factors impact access to high-quality early childhood education and career advancement.
- Leadership reflective of communities most affected by disparities in early childhood outcomes.
- Opportunities to pilot or develop a promising early-stage idea.
- Clear rationale for how time-limited funding will enable the organization to expand and deepen its impact post-grant period.
- A well-defined evaluation plan that includes at least one standardized assessment related to teacher or classroom outcomes.
Funding Information
Applicants may request funding of up to $500,000 (total) over three years. Key things to note:
- To qualify for the highest level of funding, your proposal must include multiple collaborators and engagement with local or state departments using a system-based approach focused on one of the priorities.
- The Foundation plans to award up to five grants in this funding cycle. Each grant will average about $300,000.
Who Can Apply?
- This call is open to U.S. nonprofit organizations, including fiscally sponsored groups, public school districts, and colleges that provide professional development to five or more early childhood providers or programs.
- Organizations must also have:
- A track record of providing professional development for early childhood professionals in centers, family childcare homes, or public-school Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms that results in positive learning outcomes for young children.
- A demonstrated history of collaborating with families, communities, and early childhood professionals on developing and refining its programs.
- A commitment to serving providers with student populations that are at least 60% low-income (Stranahan defines low-income as families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level or 50% of the area’s median household income).
Restrictions
Foundation will not consider proposals that include requests for:
- Ongoing professional development programming and operations.
- Stranahan-specific support for scholarships or tuition assistance (can be part of a larger project).
- Significant staff incentives (i.e., stipends, gift cards, pay).
- Projects not exclusively impacting children ages birth to five (including kindergarten).
- Projects in which more than 25% of the proposed participants are currently or could be employed by the applicant organization.
- Projects serving early childhood professionals outside of the United States.
For more information, visit Stranahan Foundation.
