Early Childhood Education

Atlanta, GA

Grant & Planning Resources

• Rising Futures Expansion Fund: Rising Futures Expansion Fund (RFEF) aims to enhance and increase access to high-quality child care across Metro Atlanta. Through RFEF, eligible providers may apply for planning grants to assist with organizational planning and project predevelopment to ensure a successful and high-quality expansion project.
• PAACT Repair and Renovation Grant: PAACT: Promise All Atlanta Children Thrive and its partners are offering Atlanta’s child care providers the opportunity to apply for a grant of up to $75,000. Eligible child care providers are invited to apply to receive grant funding to repair or improve their facilities.
• ATL ACCESS Map: Interactive mapping tool for Metro Atlanta, to help funders, practitioners and childcare advocates make data-informed decisions about where early learning resources and interventions are most needed.

Philadelphia, PA

Grant Programs

• Accessing Child Care Expansion and Sustainability Supports (ACCESS): Resources to STAR 1 and 2 providers in Philadelphia to invest in their facilities and move in the STARS system.
• ECE Loan Fund: Flexible, low-interest loans to early childhood education providers in Philadelphia to offer short-term bridge loans to PHLpreK contracts and assist with facility improvement needs.
• Fund for Quality: Business planning support and facilities-related financing to support high-quality early care and education providers in Philadelphia with expanding their services to reach more low-income families.
• Philadelphia Emergency Fund for Stabilization of Early Education (PEFSEE): Pandemic relief grants for childcare providers in Philadelphia. Please note that the application window is currently closed.
• PHL Child Nutrition Fund: Offers resources to organizations working to expand the availability of fresh and nutritious food to children through federal child nutrition programs.
• Coaching to Success: The Coaching to Success program offers assistance to Philadelphia-based early childhood education (ECE) providers of all size, structure, and quality level as they seek to navigate and sustain a delicate business model.
• The Sustainable Economic Empowerment and Development (SEED) Fund: Grant funding and financial coaching to support family child care business owners in Philadelphia, with a specific focus on retirement planning.

Planning Resources

• Childcare Map: A tool to help Philadelphians make decisions about childcare. Use it for research, planning, exploration and investment in expansion.
• Coaching to Success (C2S): The C2S program offers assistance to Philadelphia-based early childhood education (ECE) providers of all size, structure, and quality level as they seek to navigate these challenging times.
• ECE Fiscal Hub Business Practices Survey Report: The report includes a summary of responses and examines connections between frequency of fiscal practices and confidence in those practices, along with implications for potential technical assistance interventions.
• Getting Back to Care: Findings from a Philadelphia Survey on Restarting Early Childhood Education: The report provides a summary of a survey from July 2020 to gain an understanding of what parents were doing for childcare before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, how that has changed, and what their priorities are as they contemplate returning their children to childcare.
• Provider Restart Survey Report: The report includes a summary of 379 Philadelphia Emergency Fund for Stabilization of Early Education (PEFSEE) grantee responses to a survey outlining their enrollment, staffing, and financial situation in August 2020.

New Jersey

Grant Programs

• New Jersey Child Nutrition Fund: Grants to support federal nutrition program sponsors, sites and meal vendors to expand the availability of fresh and nutritious food to children.

Planning Resources

• Passaic County Childcare Map: Interactive web-based tool shows the supply of and demand for childcare and preschool in Passaic County, NJ and identifies where gaps exist. It also breaks down availability of high quality childcare and preschool centers.
• Newark Childcare Map: The Newark Child Care Map helps parents, child care providers, policy makers and investors use data to aid planning and decision-making around early childhood education in Newark, NJ.
• Nourishing Our Youngest Children: How to Expand the Child and Adult Care Food Program: Report examines CACFP, with a focus on the child care portion of the program and the program’s current implementation in NJ. It includes a look at barriers and challenges and recommendations to expand this critical child nutrition to more young children across the state.
• Design Recommendations Family Child Care Homes |Design Recommendations Child Care Centers: Resource guides on the planning and design of high-quality early care and learning spaces that conform to the licensing regulations of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Office of Licensing (OOL), the State of New Jersey and within Mercer County.

Montgomery County, MD

Loan Programs

• Montgomery County Early Care and Education (ECE) Facility Loan Program [Spanish/Español] provides forgivable and 0% interest loans to eligible child care providers in Montgomery County, Maryland to help them grow, improve quality, and serve more families through facility improvements, expansions, and equipment.

Washington, DC

Grant Programs

• The Early Learning Stabilization Grant (ELSG) offers resources to Child Development Homes through grant funding and a provider-led business coaching program. This opportunity is available for licensed CDH and CDX businesses in Washington, D.C. 
• Early Learning Quality Fund: Business planning support and facilities-related financing for licensed early learning providers in Wards 7 and 8 in the District of Columbia to improve their facilities to provide safe, high-quality early environments for infants and toddlers (ages 0 to 3).

Planning Resources

• Early Childhood Map DC: Explore the supply of and demand for early learning seats across the District of Columbia.