Commitments - Page 3 of 3 - Invest In Us

Delaware is in the process of implementing a strategic plan that addresses the comprehensive needs of children from birth to age five, developed as a joint effort between public and private partners. In 2012, Delaware received the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant from the federal government for $50 million and has expanded the scope of its strategic plan. As part of this plan, Delaware has made a commitment to a “whole child” approach, which combines physical and mental healthcare with early education to improve early child development. Delaware has a long-term goal to ensure all children receiving child care subsidies have access to programs rated in the highest tier of the Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS). The state also plans to extend access to home visiting and family health services to all families. Delaware’s plan actively works to increase the quality of the systems already in place through further implementation of its rating system to ensure providers meet certain standards and by providing more complete early childhood services, such as mental and physical healthcare services.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

As part of an overall effort to improve education for Cleveland children, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District partnered with the philanthropic sector, business community, and representatives of the charter sector to develop a plan to fundamentally reinvent public education in Cleveland, creating The Cleveland Plan for Transforming Schools. This plan was presented to the Governor and the Ohio General Assembly and was adopted in July of 2012. That November, a $15 million property tax levy was passed to enact provisions of the Cleveland Plan. One of the six core goals of the Cleveland Plan was to make high-quality preschool available for every four-year-old, then three-year-old, in the City of Cleveland. A Pre-K Task Force of more than 30 Cleveland area organizations was convened in October of 2013 to create a roadmap for this goal. The PRE4CLE plan, developed by this Task Force, would more than double the number of children in high-quality preschool programs and make preschool available to more than 70 percent of the city’s 5,400 four-year- olds. It was approved by the city and school leadership and adopted in March of 2014.

PRE4CLE includes rigorous child-level and system-level benchmarks based off the new state multi-dimensional kindergarten readiness assessment and Ohio’s child care quality rating system. It emphasizes equitable compensation for teachers and expanded access to scholarship programs for teachers seeking degrees. The first wave of PRE4CLE expansion enrollees entered high-quality preschool programs in August of 2014, with nearly 350 additional seats available, and a target of over 1,100 four-year-olds in the first year. Private partners have not only engaged in the design and development of PRE4CLE, but they have made philanthropic investments to leverage local government dollars and reach additional children with high-quality services. Cuyahoga County, which encompasses the City of Cleveland, has a program called Invest in Children that engages government and private organizations to help achieve a common goal of increased public services for early childhood. Invest in Children’s programs include universal preschool, home visiting services, and home-based early literacy services. The program is largely funded through grants from a variety of charitable organizations, such as the Cleveland Foundation and other local philanthropic groups.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In 2013, Chicago Public Schools and the City of Chicago’s Department of Family Supports and Services came together to launch Chicago: Ready to Learn!, an initiative that expands early learning opportunities across Chicago. This initiative serves children in Early Head Start, the IL Prevention Initiative, Head Start, and Preschool for All. The city recently committed to a new investment of $36 million over three years, beginning with $10 million in the 2013-2014 school year, to increase access to early learning programs and raise the quality of existing programs, reaching 5,000 additional children who were not previously served. Those investments have resulted in over 2,300 additional children being served this school year. In addition, the city is investing in raising the quality of existing early learning services through efforts focused on intensive parent engagement, teacher preparation and development, nursing and health services, and community partnerships. The city has ensured that early learning services across Chicago are aligned and form a strong continuum of experiences for young children and their families, starting with home visiting and infant/toddler programs, full-day preschool, and full-day kindergarten. The Chicago: Ready to Learn! program is free of charge for income-eligible families, children with special needs, and children in temporary living circumstances. Fees for other children depend on family income level. The city has partnered with Goldman Sachs, the Northern Trust financial services firm, and the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation to reach additional children through $17 million in private investments and the use of innovative financial tools, including social impact bonds, that leverage the city’s investment.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In 2005, Boston launched a citywide universal preschool program in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) for four-year-olds that combined two features of early childhood education: research-based, integrated and thematic curricula and quality professional development informed by NAEYC quality standards and practices. Through a public-private partnership, the Boston program was able to hire coaches to improve the skills of preschool teachers and ensure high-quality programming. Today, the BPS high-quality preschool program serves over 2,300 four-year-olds. Research has demonstrated significant benefits for children who participate in the BPS preschool program in cognitive and non-cognitive skills, including language, math, executive functioning and self-regulation. Results also show that the program helps to close the achievement gap, though it benefits all children, regardless of race and income.

In an effort to reach more children and provide a consistent preschool experience for all students entering kindergarten, BPS next obtained external funding to expand beyond the school-based classrooms to community-based programs through an initiative known as the Boston K1DS demonstration project. The demonstration project serves approximately 250 students in 14 classrooms. Preliminary results look promising, showing gains in instructional quality in math, language and literacy. BPS and its partners in the Boston K1DS effort recently received additional funding to expand the project to six Head Start classrooms in the city. In addition to the curriculum, materials, and coaching support, this new project will build Head Start’s internal capacity for classroom mentoring and coaching. These efforts with community-based and Head Start programs are supported by grants from Pierce Trust, the Barr Foundation, Cox Foundation, and Race to the Top funds. Additionally, in 2008, Boston launched Thrive in Five, a public-private partnership between the City of Boston and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, dedicated to ensuring that children of all backgrounds have the needed support and opportunities to succeed in school and life. To tackle the latter part of the learning continuum, the city is also working with several renowned academic experts to develop a curriculum and adequate supports for children in kindergarten through the third grade.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Alabama has increased funding for preschool while maintaining high-quality standards with three outcome goals in mind: positive social-emotional skills, acquisition and use of knowledge, and use of appropriate behavior to meet students’ needs. For the past eight years, Alabama’s First Class preschool program has received the highest quality rating by the National Institute for Early Education Research. Alabama has strict student-to-teacher ratio guidelines that ensure each child gets adequate attention from his or her teacher. In addition, teachers must have a bachelor’s degree or higher and specialization in early childhood or a teaching certification. The state’s quality programming also encourages parent involvement in child education.

Alabama has increased budget funding for First Class preschool programming by $10 million for the 2015 fiscal year to provide additional high-quality programs for 12 percent of the state’s four-year- olds. The 2014 fiscal year saw a $9.4 million increase in First Class preschool budgeting, which supported approximately 100 new grants and allowed more than 1,800 children (nine percent of the total four-year-old population) to access state preschool programs. Public-private partnerships allow school districts and states to access additional funds so they can provide their students better educational opportunities. For example, Alabama Partnership for Children (APC) is a prominent Alabama organization that uses public and private partnerships to develop and strengthen programs and increase awareness of early education opportunities in Alabama.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Marriott Foundation is committing $5 million over three years to support quality early education for all children aged zero to eight in the District of Columbia. Our vision for this commitment is that all of D.C.’s children, regardless of where they attend school, are equipped with the building blocks for lifelong learning and healthy social-emotional development.

Commitment progress

The Marriott Foundation has hosted two convening events for philanthropists and foundations in the Washington, D.C. area to focus on quality pre-K and early childhood initiatives. The first event brought together experts from around the country, local government leaders, researchers and practitioners in a roundtable discussion focusing on key elements of providing quality pre-K for all D.C.’s children. The second event was for philanthropists and foundations in D.C. to discuss their own grant making strategies for early childhood development

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In 2015, UPS and its employees will commit $5 million to help local communities address the challenge of ensuring more children are reading on grade level by the third grade. This commitment is directed towards early grade level reading initiatives conducted at the community level by United Way as part of the national Campaign for Grade Level Reading. Our new investment will impact nearly 100 communities across the country, enabling them to target three areas: reducing summer learning loss, reducing chronic absence, and improving the quality of early learning opportunities.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Televisa Foundation commits to promoting innovation for early childhood education in the Hispanic community by developing free and culturally responsive digital platforms related to early math and technology education for English Language Learners (ELLs), particularly focusing on low-income households. Televisa Foundation aims to reach 300,000 families with TV ad space in Univision networks with an estimated value of $2 million.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

As part of the McCormick Foundation’s $6 million annual investment in education, the Foundation anticipates at least $2 million in new investments for the Collective Illinois Effort in 2015. These new investments will leverage federal initiatives such as the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, and home visiting expansion to ensure children and their families in Illinois have access to high-quality early learning services that support success in school and life.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Heinz Endowments has current investments of more than $8.1 million in early childhood education grants and about $1 million in maternal and child health in Pennsylvania. These investments support communications, policy and advocacy efforts, as well as direct program grants for quality improvement efforts, professional development, strategic planning and development efforts, literacy programs and green and healthy facilities improvements. These commitments will continue in 2015. In addition to those investments, The Heinz Endowments expects to support the following new initiatives through an additional $9 million investment: implementation of the 10 recommendations of Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Early Childhood Education; support for Pennsylvania’s Preschool Expansion Grant; new advocacy efforts to mobilize Pennsylvania citizens to support universal preschool by elevating the Pre-K for PA campaign; a challenge grant to corporations to support ECE efforts; support to build a stronger business collaborative in Pittsburgh; support of a campaign to raise an additional $1 million for early literacy efforts; implementation of new home visiting programs that will forge a new partnership with Pittsburgh’s Health Department and Department of Human Services; and new health and wellness initiatives in maternal and child health led by the Department of Health.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Commitment of over $2 million a year from 2015 to 2017. This estimated annual distribution supports teacher and school administrator training in public preschool sites, scholarships for some four-year-olds, and advocacy for early education. An example of the investments made in 2014 includes a $58,000 grant to train public and private preschool teachers in early mathematics teaching skills.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The George Kaiser Family Foundation plans new and renewed commitments of more than $125 million over five years in support of high-quality early childhood education programs and related parent engagement efforts for at-risk families with children from birth through three years of age. Over the last eight years, the Foundation has spent approximately $20 million each year in creating new, high-quality, center-based early childhood programs, training early education teachers, improving maternal/child health and birth-spacing, launching job-training programs and prison-diversion efforts, and developing mixed income housing and various other initiatives—all focused toward providing equal opportunity for Tulsa’s youngest and most vulnerable children and their families.

The Foundation will expand its efforts with these children and families through an additional commitment of $25 million over five years to provide more early childhood school sites and a community-wide engagement initiative which will include parents, caregivers, teachers, businesspeople, pediatricians and pastors, alongside other community members, to improve the quality of adult and child interactions for Tulsa’s youngest children. This parent engagement effort is designed to extend the impact of high-quality, center-based education, currently serving 2,000 infants and toddlers, and reach the 20,000 children who are eligible but not receiving full-time, quality early learning. It will start with a visit in the hospital with every parent of a newborn in Tulsa before the baby is discharged and continue in pediatric offices, intensive group parenting classes and monthly literacy activities, all reinforced through religious institutions, day care centers, media, and text messaging. The goal is to make Tulsa the first community in the country where every parent or caregiver is a teacher and every home is a preschool.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

ABCmouse.com is the leading and most comprehensive online learning resource for children in preschool through 1st grade, with more than 7,000 carefully designed learning activities encompassing reading and language arts, math, science, social studies, art, and music. The award-winning curriculum is available on computers, tablets, and smartphones; to date, millions of children have completed more than 1.4 million ABCmouse.com learning activities. Age of Learning, Inc., the company that created and continues to develop this learning resource, pledges to provide ABCmouse.com for free to every preschool, Head Start, and early elementary classroom in the U.S. over the next two years, with a value expected to exceed $10 million.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Greater Cleveland Community is a leader and national model for community collaboration, strategic focus, and local investment in birth through grade three strategies. This unique and transformative model has been forged through a partnership between Cuyahoga County’s Invest in Children initiative, philanthropic and business partners, the City of Cleveland, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Starting Point (Cuyahoga County’s child care resource and referral agency), the Educational Service Center of Cuyahoga County, and now PRE4CLE, Cleveland’s new plan to ensure all three- and four-year-olds have access to high-quality preschool. Currently, the Greater Cleveland Community invests approximately $32 million annually through public and private investments in early learning and development. The Cleveland community is proud to announce $10.2 million in new investments in early childhood programs. This commitment includes funding from The George Gund Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation, the PNC Foundation and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The work represented by these initiatives is highly integrated, collaborative, and supports early childhood development across the entire continuum.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Rose Community Foundation in Colorado is creating a new entity, the Colorado Early Childhood Foundation, to leverage and support federal initiatives in a public-private partnership approach. With $300,000 already raised for this new entity, the plan is to raise $1.5 million in 2015.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Schumann Fund for New Jersey will provide up to $1.5 million ($500,000 each year) in New Jersey over the next three years to support early childhood systems building work related to the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant and preschool expansion. This funding will be directed at extending the impact of state and federal investments in expanding access to preschool, implementing a Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) state-wide, and coordinating services for children from birth to age eight.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In 2014, RWJF began investing in initiatives to promote the social and emotional development of children, as a means to support overall wellbeing, including academic achievement, and improved resilience—and including projects aimed to influence stakeholders at national, state, and local levels. At the national level, we are committing approximately $4 million over the next several years to advance the integration of child development, social and emotional skills building, and health supports within early care and education settings, as a means to support academic achievement and overall wellbeing. At the local level, we are committing approximately $11 million over the next several years to build tools and resources that facilitate community engagement to implement social and emotional learning and health supports in schools that promote and improve mental health among children; to employ collective action strategies and support community partnerships to promote resilience and social emotional health in families with young children; and integrate the growing knowledge about brain science into programs, policy and systems design to improve child and family outcomes, including social emotional outcomes.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Santa Barbara County funders (Orfalea Foundation, James S. Bower Foundation, Santa Barbara Foundation, Hutton Parker Foundation and the Towbes Family Foundation) pledge a total of $3.5 million to a portfolio of initiatives that will create and expand quality early education through a place-based comprehensive approach aimed at significantly improving school readiness in targeted communities. This pledge will expand access to high-quality early childhood education that supports the development of cognitive and social-emotional skills and prepares children for kindergarten, as well as support family- and center-based quality accreditation. In addition, County funders aim to create a network of 40 high-quality early childhood centers that model innovative Preschool Food and Outdoor Classroom practices and provide high-quality preschool services to at-risk children and their families.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Rauch Foundation has worked closely with The Horace and Amy Hagedorn Fund and The Hagedorn Foundation for more than 20 years to support organizations and policies on Long Island that intervene early in children’s lives and help strengthen families. Over the past five years, these Foundations have invested more than $11 million to expand quality early care and learning opportunities on Long Island. The Foundations have committed to increase these investments for Long Island. The Rauch Foundation will increase investments to at least $7.5 million over the next five years, and The Horace and Amy Hagedorn Fund and The Hagedorn Foundation will invest an additional $6 million. This funding will focus on expanding the Parent-Child Home Program in New York, strengthening state and local early childhood systems and leveraging existing funding to expand access to high-quality early learning opportunities on Long Island. Additional funding is available should there be increased opportunities for public-private partnerships with local, state or federal funding.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Omaha is a mid-sized city with big-city challenges. This new investment will serve children and families living in two neighborhoods that are home to three of Nebraska’s four designated “high poverty zip codes”—and the two zip codes in the state with the highest percentages of young children in poverty. Inspired, in part, by compelling longitudinal data that shows Educare students outperforming their peers in third and fifth grade, Omaha Public Schools (OPS) has embarked on an ambitious preschool expansion that will eventually bring universal preschool services to all three- and four-year-old children in the district. The OPS preschool classes will be six-hour days. Buffett Early Childhood Fund and other private funders are eager to work in public-private partnership with the schools and other public funders to help reach the neediest children and families even earlier in their lives, and to provide full-day, high-quality care for those families who need it. The achievement gap is measureable as early as a baby’s 18-month birthday and even before. Educare research shows vulnerable children and families who receive high-quality care and education from their earliest weeks, months and years do better in school. As the Omaha Public Schools expand preschool education, Buffett Early Childhood Fund and other private funders commit to investing $15 million to expand high-quality early childhood services for an additional 192 infants, toddlers and their families.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Pritzker Children’s Initiative (PCI), a national project of the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation, has worked for over a decade toward a single achievable goal: that all at-risk infants and toddlers obtain access to high-quality early childhood development opportunities, increasing their likelihood of success in school and in life. Today, to continue its work in making early childhood development a national priority, PCI takes bold action on behalf of our country’s most vulnerable infants and toddlers and their families with an increased commitment of $25 million over five years in three areas: 1) Scaling zero-to-three high-quality, evidence-based early childhood programs; 2) Advancing early learning Social Impact Bond investments to increase access to evidence-based programs; 3) Furthering research on the economic efficacy of government investments in early childhood development that transform the lives of disadvantaged young children and their families. Through the Pritzker Early Childhood Consortium at the University of Chicago, PCI will build upon groundbreaking research by Nobel laureate economist James Heckman establishing the high returns from public investments in early childhood, and will advance these findings through the Heckman Equation online platform.

Similarly, PCI continues to support the University of Minnesota’s Child-Parent Centers Education Program and the Faculty Innovation Fund at the Erikson Institute, both of which will spur a deeper understanding of best practices within the early childhood development field. PCI will dramatically expand access to high-quality services for children and families by catalyzing public and private capital through innovative financing tools, as illustrated by the recent Social Impact Bonds in Salt Lake County and Chicago. As a leading funder of Educare in underserved communities in Washington, D.C., Chicago and DuPage County in Illinois, PCI will further highlight best practices in Early Head Start and Head Start classroom settings while engaging parents with a full compliment of support services. In addition, PCI will partner with organizations that build sustainable quality in early childhood programs, such as Ounce of Prevention Fund, First Five Years Fund, HealthConnect One, New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Alliance for Early Success, ReadyNation and BUILD Initiative.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In recognition of the vital role that quality early education experiences play in improving school readiness for our nation’s children, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and local public media stations have together committed $58 million, including $20 million in newly dedicated funds, to expand the scope and reach of the U.S. Department of Education Ready To Learn (RTL) Grant program. Through a combination of Ready To Learn resources and new funds from the recently-established American Graduate/PBS KIDS Fund, CPB and PBS are serving as a nexus of local, national, public, private, and not-for-profit partnerships to provide greater access to high-quality educational media and digital learning tools. These public organizations will increase the amount of free, high-quality content created and distributed to enrich early learning experiences in more homes, child care centers, and classrooms, deploy innovative approaches to improving early education including free digital tools to help parents support their children’s learning, and expand professional development opportunities for the early learning workforce.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In 2013, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation provided $500,000 in early learning grants. In 2016, the Foundation will invest over $5 million in young children. An investment will be made in California’s new grade level, Transitional Kindergarten (TK), which requires new commitments to the workforce. In a multi-year, multi- partner initiative, the Foundation will provide evidenced-based professional development that includes training, coaching, child progress monitoring, and environmental assessment to increase the quality of instruction for 730 TK children in Oakland by Spring 2015. Three assessments will be used to track progress, inform instruction and demonstrate outcomes. The foundation deeply believes that the quality of literacy opportunities has a profound impact on children’s trajectories.

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is enriching Oakland preschool/TK classrooms with the SEEDS of Early Learning and the replication of Minnesota Reading Corps. By Spring 2015, the investment will serve almost 1,000 children and track outcomes towards children securing predictive skills: alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language, vocabulary, and book and print rules. Planning is currently underway to invest deeply in charter and district school communities in Oakland to build a birth-through-eight system. Schools will provide literacy rich opportunities for children from the time they are born until they are reading successfully. In partnership with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the District, the Foundation’s commitment will fund a new Deputy Superintendent of Early Learning, support the development of a birth-12th grade citywide data system, and plan for the full utilization and expansion of subsidized preschool.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In addition to the William Penn Foundation’s ongoing support of early education initiatives in Pennsylvania and across the country, the Foundation is making a new $3.2 million commitment for the last quarter of 2014 in order to further our shared goal of expanding access to high-quality early childhood education. In 2015, the William Penn Foundation will commit another $8 million in additional funding to improve the quality of, and access to, early childhood education.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In 2015 and 2016, the Joyce Foundation will support the Collective Illinois Effort by committing $1,050,000 to address the school readiness gap in Illinois by supporting strategies that promote innovations in family engagement and bolster teacher quality in early education programs.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Grand Victoria Foundation is dedicated to the quality, continuity, and effectiveness of early childhood education in Illinois. We embrace the opportunity to leverage Invest in US for the benefit of children and families in Illinois. To support the success of the initiative, Grand Victoria Foundation will grant $2 million in new funding in 2015 and 2016 for early childhood initiatives in Illinois. In particular, our focus will be to strengthen infrastructure and system investments. Our grants will be directed at developing sustainable community systems as well as providing technical assistance to help program providers meet higher quality standards through ExceleRate and to support the work of Illinois’ Early Learning Council to advance a well-coordinated, comprehensive system for children and families.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

In pursuit of its goal to empower children to become creative and engaged lifelong learners, the LEGO Foundation is proud to announce a commitment of $5 million to launch the Early Learning Initiative with New Profit, Inc. The Initiative will convene a cross-sector community of thought leaders, practitioners, researchers and philanthropists who will build on shared learnings to identify and lift up approaches that offer scalable, high-impact results for young children. By forging connections between developmental science and the systems that can deliver outstanding early childhood programs, this $20 million effort will select and support a set of six to ten investments in organizations that emphasize whole-child development in reaching children and the parents, caregivers and educators who support them.

Leveraging New Profit’s exceptional 15-year track record of venture philanthropy that enables proven social entrepreneurs to grow their organizations and strengthen their impact, the LEGO Foundation hopes its commitment will catalyze additional financial commitments and activate a results-driven network to drive lasting impact on the sector. The LEGO Foundation believes that learning through play should be at the heart of our discussions about what quality early learning looks like, and looks forward to this collaboration as a way to share its experience, to learn from others in the field and to think together about how to use the transformative power of learning through play to benefit young children around the world.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Scholastic commits to providing in-kind donations of over $1 million worth of books and professional learning opportunities to awardees of the U.S. Department of Education’s Preschool Development Grants and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Early Head Start–Child Care Partnership Grants. Scholastic will donate preschool classroom libraries, consisting of 300 board books for ages zero to three, to each Early Head Start Grant awardee. Approximately 300 early childhood centers will receive a total of 90,000 books through this commitment. Scholastic will also offer five days of professional learning for early education providers and leaders in states that have been awarded Preschool Development Grants.

Commitment progress

To date, Scholastic has begun donating libraries to 115 centers who received Early Head Start–Child Care Partnership Grants.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

PVH’s philanthropic mission is championing causes that advance the needs of women and children around the world. The commitment being made by PVH will improve access to high quality early childhood education, which the company believes is essential to providing children with the ability to succeed. PVH is thrilled to be furthering its long-standing relationship with Save the Children through this $5 million commitment by The PVH Foundation to Save the Children’s Early Education program.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Mississippi recently passed the bipartisan Early Learning Collaborative Act of 2013 and funding for Mississippi Building Blocks, which established preschool and technical assistance to private child care for the first time in the state. In December 2013, the state awarded the first round of Early Learning Collaborative awards to 11 communities for voluntary preschool. The state legislature approved $3 million for grants in 2013-2014, which will serve nearly two dozen school districts this year and reach an estimated 1,500 four-year-olds per year. Mississippi Building Blocks was also funded at $3 million to help child care center teachers provide help to approximately 1,100 children utilizing the Between the Lions Reading curriculum to teach early literacy. The Governor’s State Early Childhood Advisory Council (SECAC) continues to develop a systematic approach to addressing all areas of early education. SECAC is working in six key areas of early education: improving and expanding standards; revising and expanding quality rating systems; promoting quality professional and workforce development; increasing the use of the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment; improving stakeholder and community partnerships; and building an early childhood data system.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Michigan is determined to provide its children a “great start” in their education. In 2013, a $65 million budget increase was proposed in the Great Start Program, which provides quality preschool education for four-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families. Passed by the state legislature, this was the largest increase in preschool funding by any state in 2013. Funds will help create 16,000 additional slots in half-day preschool. In addition to meeting increasing demand for the state’s preschool program, this proposed funding increase will help improve the quality of early childhood education by increasing per-student spending to $3,645. Under the guidelines of Michigan’s Early Childhood Standards of Quality for Pre-kindergarten, the $65 million budget increase will keep class sizes and ratios small to promote strong relationships between children and teachers. An additional $65 million is being added in 2014-2015.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

California’s approach to early childhood education is guided by principles designed to help students thrive in preschool and be prepared for kindergarten—a quality early learning program, an early learning program connected to the K-12 system, access to quality early education, and providing children with comprehensive developmental support. California intends to accomplish these goals with a comprehensive system of supports for children and Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS). California increased early childhood education and development funds by about $273 million in 2014. A portion of these funds will expand service capacity in the California State Preschool Program to serve an additional 11,500 children in full-day, full-year programs and increase capacity in other child care programs to 1,500 children. The budget allocates $68 million to raise reimbursement rates for child care and $15 million to eliminate family fees for part-day preschool.

California has committed to provide all low-income four-year-olds with preschool programs in future years. The state also provided one-time funding of $25 million to train preschool and transitional kindergarten educators in early childhood development, as well as one-time funding of $10 million to provide loans for state preschool facility expansion. The budget increases Early Start and Black Infant Health services by $8 million for infants and toddlers and allocates $50 million in ongoing funds for Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS). California is also working to improve pre- and in-service training for early childhood educators, supporting innovative funding models, and funding increased access to quality early learning programs, and professional development.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Foundation for Child Development will commit at least $2 million over the next three years to support New York City’s new universal preschool initiative. The Foundation for Child Development is working in collaboration with the NYC Department of Education and a handful of nonprofit institutions conducting research, program evaluation, and professional learning to enhance the knowledge, skills and dispositions of the city’s early learning workforce. Enhancing teacher quality will have a direct impact on the 70,000 children projected to be enrolled each year when the program is fully operational.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Bezos Family Foundation is committed to helping all children realize their full potential, starting from day one. Through investments that span the continuum from birth to high school, the Foundation partners with education programs, providers and systems in order to improve outcomes for all children, particularly those in poverty. For over a decade, the Foundation has taken a strong focus on the first five years of life. On top of its existing commitments, the Bezos Family Foundation is extending an additional $5 million over two years. This commitment will continue to support scientific discoveries and the translation of research into practice, innovative communications efforts that bridge the gap between what we know and what we do, and the dissemination of research-based tools that promote children’s brain development. Specifically, the funds will support grants in neuroscience and early childhood development; scalable parenting programs that strengthen parent-child interaction; dynamic messaging efforts that leverage technology; the development of corporate and community partnerships; and the creation of Early Learning Nation communities across the country.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Kaplan Early Learning Company (KELC) is excited to announce a commitment of $1.6 million over the next three years to the field of early care and education. KELC plans to invest over $120,000 towards the goal of reducing childhood obesity through a partnership with the Nemours Foundation in support of the National Early Care & Education Learning Collaborative Project. This project will reach thousands of children across the United States and focus on strengthening early education in nutrition and increasing physical activity in schools and child care centers. KELC will continue its financial support of $25,000 annually to the Nemours BrightStart! Initiative, a program designed to help struggling readers successfully transition to kindergarten and beyond. KELC will also donate more than $500,000 on behalf of nonprofit organizations such as DonorsChoose.org, Child Care Aware of America, and the National Head Start Association to help support and advocate for the children and families these programs serve. Another $500,000 will be invested into a collaboration with Yale University to translate, adapt, and validate a comprehensive curriculum.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Trust for Learning commits $15 million to increase access to high-quality, developmentally-appropriate early childhood education models for low-income and at-risk populations in the United States. In a collaborative strategy, Trust partners including the Harold Simmons Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the McCall Kulak Family Foundation and the McTeague Catalyst Fund will use this investment to dramatically increase the number of public early childhood programs using the evidence-based, time-tested Montessori approach to transform classrooms and support families in underserved communities. Montessori is overwhelmingly chosen as a model of private education by parents seeking the best early learning environments for their children, but of the approximately 5,000 existing schools in the U.S., only 500 are public. Within this number, several exemplary public programs use Montessori to provide deep, student-centered early learning, as well as wrap-around services such as parent support, home visits, special needs and learning differences support, with outstanding results for children and families involved.

The Trust’s multi-pronged effort will increase access to this type of program by expanding and replicating successful, multi-generational community demonstration projects; leveraging an existing network of high-quality teacher training centers to prepare significantly more early childhood teachers, and trainers of teachers, who are uniquely prepared to observe, understand and cultivate children’s development; creating a new teacher recruitment pipeline (TeachMontessori.org) to develop a network of top-quality young teachers; and building awareness of the potential of these programs through targeted communication and outreach.

Commitment progress

Trust for Learning has made a grant to support the first Montessori Public Policy Initiative Convening, where representatives from over 20 state Montessori associations will gather to share and plan for policy action to expand access to more public Montessori schools. The James Walton Foundation, a Trust for Learning partner, has also recently invested in the National Centre for Montessori in the public sector.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Overdeck Family Foundation (OFF) believes that children’s beginning years are critical. Overdeck has contributed to early childhood since its inception. In addition to grantmaking, the Foundation supports the research of Bedtime Math, an affiliated organization whose mission is to make nightly math as universal and beloved as a bedtime story. OFF affirms an additional commitment of $3 million to early childhood over the next three years, aimed at a range of programs that lay strong foundations for children’s readiness, numeracy, and non-cognitive skills. OFF seeks to invest in programs that expand the capacity of early childhood teachers and leaders, strengthen the quality of early learning, support parents and caregivers in promoting learning at home, and improve continuity in children’s formal learning from birth through third grade.

Commitment progress

The Overdeck Family Foundation has committed just under $1 million in early childhood grants. These grants have supported home-visiting programs, parent support and education efforts, and field-building and advocacy work. We expect to contribute an additional $2 million by the end of the calendar year, surpassing their commitment of $3 million over three years.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Bainum Family Foundation believes that children living in poverty should be given the chance to rise above their given circumstances by gaining access to high-quality early education and services. They should have the opportunity to graduate from high school well prepared for higher education or gainful employment so that they can contribute to their communities and society as a whole. The Bainum Family Foundation commits $10 million in new funding toward effective early childhood education over the next five years. This investment will expand the availability of high-quality preschool, support the development and demonstration of research-based early learning curricula and materials, and provide instructional coaching to teachers and leaders. This investment will benefit low-income children in Washington, D.C. Through this commitment, the Bainum Family Foundation hopes to accelerate the decisions of like-minded peers in philanthropy, federal, state and local governments to make similar commitments or to commit a percentage of their annual resources to invest in early childhood education.

Commitment progress

The Board of Directors just approved a five-year strategic plan that focuses a majority of their early learning investments in high-poverty neighborhoods of Wards 7 & 8 in Washington, D.C.

The Bainum Family Foundation also invited early learning experts Joan Lombardi (former Deputy Assistant Secretary and Interagency Liaison for Early Childhood Development at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) as a senior advisor, and Miriam Calderon (former White House Senior Advisor on Early Learning and Director of Early Childhood Education for DC Public Schools) as their Senior Director of Early Learning.

Additionally, the Foundation has invested approximately $500,000 in supporting high-quality early learning providers in D.C., including Educare, AppleTree Early Learning, Martha’s Table, D.C. Prep and Ingenuity Prep.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Heising-Simons Foundation will commit up to $6.6 million from 2015 through 2018 as part of a new public-private initiative it has launched to leverage federal investments in early childhood education. The Foundation will invite proposals to help match federal investments in early childhood-focused programs in order to increase the pool and quality of resources available in California and nationally in the areas of family engagement, implementation of federal policy at the state level, and research to uncover what works in early learning. Up to $2.6 million will support efforts to enhance the quality of family engagement in California’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships and Preschool Expansion Grant, assuming federal grants are awarded to California applicants. Up to $2 million will facilitate planning and implementation of federal investments, such as the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG), and advancing the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program in California and other states to ensure these important programs meet their full potential. Up to $2 million will complement federal research efforts to help uncover what works in supporting young children’s learning and development.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

As a part of the launch of Disney Imagicademy, a new, innovative learning initiative for families with children ages three to eight, Disney is donating $55 million in high-quality apps and books to First Book and other nonprofit organizations over the next three years to make books and learning tools accessible to a larger number of young learners. Designed to inspire a lifelong love of learning and creativity in all children, Disney Imagicademy combines research-driven curricula developed in conjunction with leading academics and experts with the Disney characters and stories that children and families love. Disney will also provide funding to First Book to help children in need gain access to critical resources around the country.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The David and Laura Merage Foundation is working to incubate an innovative shared services model for the child care industry known as Early Learning Ventures (ELV). The ELV technology platform supports the infrastructure of early education facilities and maximizes the reach and impact of a shared services model. It provides a comprehensive, fully integrated bridge between small, market-based child care providers and the often-siloed child care regulatory, quality improvement and subsidy systems. The David and Laura Merage Foundation’s commitment to Invest in US is an additional $15 million to support the national scaling of this model and the advancing of the early learning movement. ELV is currently serving more than 580 child care businesses, impacting over 40,000 children, and returning up to $8 for each dollar invested. The Foundation is entering the third year of scaling the ELV Alliance network in Colorado and, today, is making a ten-year commitment to bring this model to providers across the nation. In the past year, ELV has increased membership in the Colorado network sevenfold. In fact, the State of Colorado Office of Early Childhood issued a grant to ELV in 2014 to expand services to more Colorado child care providers as they recognized the value of licensing compliance and early care quality improvements.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

The Center for American Progress is committed to promoting progressive ideas and actions. Improving access to high-quality early childhood programs for children from birth to age five is a central goal. Over the course of the next six months, CAP will engage in a renewed effort to elevate early childhood investments and the Invest in US campaign. CAP will leverage resources across the organization to promote the campaign. As a multi-issue organization, we will seek to bring stakeholders from a multitude of areas including economic justice, health, education, civil rights, and poverty to join the fight to push for investments in early childhood programs. CAP will play a major role in the Invest in US campaign event. We will use social media to echo the core messages of the campaign and produce sharable graphics for partners to distribute. For each event, we will leverage our in-house experts to articulate the need for investments in early childhood to improve the economy and outcomes for children and families. We will do a media push and develop products that make the case for increased investment in early childhood programs. We will also encourage our network of over 300 state-based organizations to incorporate a grassroots push for early childhood into their work.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

Irving Harris was driven by a clear understanding that investing early in human capital development would result in significant returns on public and private investments and, therefore, provide the greatest benefit to our society. The Irving Harris Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that all parents have the resources and support they need to nurture their young children’s growth and development beginning from birth. The Irving Harris Foundation’s total commitment of new and renewed funding for 2015 and 2016 is $16.5 million in support of high-quality, comprehensive early childhood services. In addition to sustaining the Foundation’s strategic early childhood investments of $11 million in 2015 and 2016, the Irving Harris Foundation anticipates committing $2 million in new funding in 2015 and 2016 for Illinois to leverage federal initiatives such as the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, home visiting expansion, and high-quality early learning and mental health systems integration in Illinois as well as nationally. In addition, the Foundation commits $3.5 million in 2015 and 2016 to extend new support for the 15 U.S.-based programs in the Harris Professional Development Network (PDN), a network of 18 early childhood and infant mental health leadership sites located in 10 states, the District of Columbia and three sites in Israel.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge

As part of our ongoing dedication to advance tangible, sustainable and long term progress in Detroit, the Kresge Foundation is proud to announce $20 million in new commitments over the next five years to build out a high-quality early childhood development system in the city of Detroit in collaboration with local, state and federal partners. Our overarching goal is to ensure that Detroit’s youngest children have access to the highest quality early childhood development opportunities and are prepared for kindergarten. We will focus on elevating and promoting early childhood care and education opportunities in neighborhoods throughout the city and filling gaps in the current system. We will do so in partnership with a diverse set of community stakeholders and the Southeast Michigan Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.

See All Commitments

Take The Challenge