The Stranahan Foundation’s Early Childhood Education Strategy focuses on increasing access to high-quality early care and education for low-income children (birth to five) by investing in developing and retaining a high-quality, thriving early educator workforce.
Donor Name: Stranahan Foundation
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 01/16/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 3 Years
Details:
The spring 2024 funding cycle will support organizations and projects that advance Innovation and Proven Professional Development strategies. This cycle has up to $1.1 million in funding available and is focused on soliciting proposals for the following types of projects:
- Development, piloting, and refinement of new approaches for improving knowledge, skills, or practices or growing and sustaining a thriving workforce of early childhood professionals. Innovation requests must have the following:
- A clearly defined logic model and plan for evaluating implementation and outcomes related to classroom environments, teacher practices, and, ideally, child learning.
- Provide preliminary evidence to advance the applicant’s and Foundation’s understanding of “what works,” for whom, and under what conditions” by the end of the grant period.
- Have an intention to repeat or scale the innovative approach, if proven successful, to multiple early childhood settings or various geographies.
- Expansion or modifications to a clearly defined, proven professional development model enabling future expansion or implementation in a new childhood setting. Proven Professional Development requests must have the following:
- Substantial evidence of positive outcomes for early childhood professionals, classroom environments, and, ideally, child learning.
- Clear evidence of repeated, successful implementation in multiple early childhood settings or various geographies.
Additional consideration will be given to proposals that demonstrate any of the following:
- A strong track record of working with early childhood education professionals to produce positive learning outcomes for young children, especially children from low-income families.
- A deep understanding of how race, ethnicity, language, socio-economic status, and other factors impact access to high-quality early childhood education and career opportunities for early childhood professionals.
- Organization leadership (board and staff) represent the communities most affected by disparities in early childhood outcomes.
- Provide an opportunity to expand, pilot, or develop promising early-stage ideas with a clear rationale for how time-limited funding will enable the proposal to reach its long-term goals.
- Potential to expand and deepen impact on early childhood professionals and young children after the proposed grant ends.
Funding Information
Applicants may request funding up to $300,0000 over three years.
Eligibility Criteria
This call is open to local, state, and national U.S.-based nonprofit organizations, fiscally sponsored organizations, public school districts, and higher education institutions.
Additional organization-eligibility criteria include having a demonstrated:
- Commitment to serving early childhood providers and professionals whose student populations comprise at least 60% of children from low-income families.
- Understanding and track record of directly collaborating with families, communities, and the early childhood professionals they seek to impact.
- Organization capacity and leadership to execute the proposed work, ensure quality, and use data to inform continuous improvement.
For more information, visit Stranahan Foundation.
