OVERALL PROGRAM GOAL & APPROACH
The Stranahan Foundation’s Early Childhood Education grantmaking program focuses on increasing access to high-quality early care and education for young children (birth to five), especially those from low-income families, by investing in developing and retaining a high-quality, thriving early educator workforce.
CONTEXT
The spring 2025 funding cycle will support nonprofit organizations and projects focused on advancing our Innovation and Proven Professional Development strategies. These strategies are outlined below:
Innovation: This strategy focuses on developing, piloting, and refining new approaches to improve the knowledge, skills, or practices of aspiring and existing early childhood professionals. To be considered under this strategy, your project must have:
A clearly defined logic model.
Incorporated best practices in adult learning.
An evaluation plan that (a) assesses the model’s impact on classroom environments, teacher practices, and, ideally, child learning and (b) advances our collective understanding of “what works, for whom, and under what conditions” by the end of the grant period.
Plan to repeat or scale the innovative approach to other settings or geographies if proven successful.
Proven Professional Development: This strategy focuses on expanding or modifying a clearly defined, proven professional development model to enable future expansion or implementation in a new childhood setting. To be considered as part of this strategy, your professional development model must have:
A clearly defined logic model.
Substantial third-party evidence of positive outcomes for early childhood professionals, classroom environments, and, ideally, child learning. The Foundation generally defines “substantial” as consistent with the definitions of What Works Clearinghouse or ESSA Tier 1 or 2 evidence.
Clear evidence of repeated, successful implementation in multiple early childhood settings or various geographies.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITY
This cycle has up to $1.5 million in funding available to support innovation and proven professional development proposals. Based on the highest needs surfaced through the Foundation’s recent engagement and discussions with ECE leaders and educators in our 2024 Provider cycle, we are exclusively interested in models and approaches designed to do one of the following:
Priority consideration will be given to organizations that demonstrate the following:
BUDGET & AWARDS
Applicants may request funding up to $500,000, paid over three years. However, only proposals that include multiple collaborators or take a systems-based approach are anticipated to receive funding at the highest level.
In the second phase of the application process, semi-finalists will be asked to submit a project budget that aligns with the project's scope, supports proposed activities, and connects those activities with line-item requests.
The Foundation anticipates awarding up to five grants, averaging approximately $300,000, as part of this funding cycle.
ELIGIBILITY & RESTRICTIONS
Eligibility
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 organizational eligibility criteria include:
Restrictions
We will not consider proposals that include requests for:
APPLICATION PROCESS
The three-phase application process includes a Letter of Interest (LOI), a full proposal, and a site visit. To help you prepare, a copy of the application questions for the initial two phases is provided here.
PLEASE NOTE: We will only review applications containing the required documentation. Additionally, please check the timeline and due dates carefully. We recommend that applicants plan to submit materials well before each deadline, as we will only accept applications submitted in full through the designated system before the deadline.
CYCLE TIMELINE
HOW TO APPLY
To start the LOI process, click here.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
For a list of our most commonly asked questions, please click here. We will continue to update this document throughout the open RFP process! Please check back regularly.
PROSPECTIVE APPLICANT SUPPORT
Prospective applicants are encouraged to take advantage of the following opportunities for proposal support:
Question Period from November 19 through January 14: Our team will respond to questions about this funding opportunity and the application process via grants@stranahanfoundation.org. Please check the Frequently Asked Questions above before submitting your questions, as we will update this document in real-time.
Open office hours on December 4, December 17, and January 9: We will host three 60-minute virtual office hour blocks during which prospective applicants can drop in to ask questions directly to staff. See details for these sessions below:
Due to overwhelming response, we have closed the sign-up lists for office hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Please note that our staff is in the Eastern Time Zone and will be unavailable from November 25 to 29 and from December 23, 2024, to January 1, 2025.
REVIEW PROCESS
Our staff, early childhood consultant, and Early Childhood Committee will review all letters of interest and full proposal submissions. Reviewers will rate and comment on various criteria. For more details about the individual criteria, click here.
EVALUATION + REPORTING EXPECTATIONS OF GRANTEES
Evaluation: All proposals must have a plan for tracking key outputs, outcomes, and learning throughout a project. The strongest proposals will include at least some form of each of the following three types of evaluation:
Ultimately, the specific evaluation tools and methods proposed should be appropriate to the project context and stage of project development, with consideration given to any prior evaluative evidence that informs the approach. An external evaluator is not a requirement but may be part of the proposal.
Finalists will be expected to collaborate with their assigned program officer to develop a set of grant metrics for reporting.
Reporting: Generally, the Stranahan Foundation requires one narrative grant report every 12 months. However, as a steward of the Foundation’s assets, we may institute more frequent reporting requirements or a formal check-in cadence if the organization has a short operating history, limited financial assets, a complicated organizational structure, or an experimental or complex project.
RESOURCES:
2024 Federal Poverty Guidelines
Logic Model:
Logic Model – Module 1 Video, Institute of Education Sciences YouTube Channel
Developing a Logic Model or Theory of Change, The Community Tool Box
Logic Model Development Guide, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Adult learning:
A Four-step Approach to Engage Adult Learners, Mathematica
Adult Learning Theory: the 10 Key Principles and best practices, Big THINK
Evaluation:
IMPACT Measures Tool by the Institute for Child Success
ESSA Tiers of Evidence (a framework for determining which programs, practices, strategies, and interventions work in which contexts for which students).