Our Grants

We are a group of national early childhood education focused funders who envision a country in which opportunity and achievement gaps no longer exist so that all students, especially children from families with low incomes and children of color, make significant and sustained gains in cognitive, social, and emotional development. To manifest this vision we help to ensure that every young child has access to high-quality early childhood education programs led by well-prepared and appropriately compensated teachers.

IMPROVING EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR PREPARATION AND COMPENSATION

In early 2019, the Collaborative sought to inform its grantmaking strategies for improving early childhood educator preparation and compensation by engaging a team of researchers to provide an analysis and in-depth study of trends, gaps and potential opportunities across all 50 states. The result is a series of studies that provide a wealth of information to not only inform grantmaking strategies, but to shape research, practice and advocacy efforts for everyone in the field. Our hope is that these reports shine a light on the realities of the system and lead to action. Learn more about these studies.

COVID-19 RESPONSE GRANTS

The global health pandemic and the amplified call to address longstanding systemic racism in America have exposed the many structural inequities and instabilities impacting the early care and education workforce. We have awarded four grants to accelerate and deepen our investment in the mission to build an equitable, high-quality early learning system. Learn more about our COVID-19 Response Grants.

TRANSFORM EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION LEAD TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS

The purpose of this funding opportunity is to encourage innovative approaches to dismantling barriers in the current system in order to transform the system itself to better serve the current and future ECE workforce. We support partnerships of institutions of higher education (IHEs) and states/territories/Tribal Nations in transforming their preparation programs for early educators. The submission deadline for this opportunity is now closed. Click for updates and an overview of the opportunity.