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 Early Childhood and Child Care Grants - U.S.

The truth is, and it seems no one else wants to acknowledge this fact, unless you seek and obtain non-profit status, there is not a lot of help available in the way of grants for your child care business.

For-profit child care business operators, large and small, may, that's a small may because they aren't all that many programs available with the exception of the Child and Adult Care Food Program in the U.S., be able to apply for local state/provincial programs being offered through their licensing office, Children's and Family Services Office, and/or Child Care Resource and Referral Agency. childcare.net's advice for for-profit child care operators is to inquire at these locations first. Other than that, the best way to locate financing for your child care business is to:

• Look into bank loans
• Obtain venture capital
• Seek gifts and loans from family and friends
• Look for advice from incubator organizations, or
• Obtain counsel from local small business and women's associations.

In a few states, special loan programs have being developed to help child care programs access immediate funds at affordable rates, like Washington and Oregon's Cascadia Child Care Fund. Contact your local licensing office or Small Business Administration (SBA) for information about financing child care as a small business opportunity. There may also be special initiatives available through the SBA or through local women's organizations to help finance women-owned and -operated businesses as well.

Independent child care business owners can also try the Foundation Grants to Individuals OnLine, a service of The Foundation Center. http://www.fdncenter.org. For $9.95 per month (payable by credit card) the Foundation Center offers an online listings of Grants to Individuals in the U.S. To learn more, visit heir About Foundation Grants to Individuals online at: http://gtionline.fdncenter.org/gti_help/1aboutfd.htm.

Visit our Financing Child Care Sources page for more detailed information on financing resources for child care.

Finally, while we take no pleasure in telling it like it is, we believe our visitors need to know the truth and understand the facts about grants. If you are a for-profit child care operator and have been successful in securing funding for your program, please share your information with our visitors by sending us an Email at: info@childcare.net so we can post the resource and help others.

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To make your search even easier, we've dedicated specific pages for Canadian and U.S. grant sources, and alternative financing sources.

Grants & Funding Sources for Child Care
Canadian Grant & Funding Sources
Financing Child Care Sources

8 Important Steps to Obtaining Grants for Your Child Care
   Business. This no-holds-barred, comprehensive article will get you
   started on your search for child care grants.

Have a question about searching for grants or putting a grant proposal together? Need help just figuring out where to start? Let childcare.net help with our ALL NEW Consulting Service.

For even more great resources visit our Online Catalog.

We've done the research so you don't have to!

Most grants are available only to non-profit organizations. The links below will guide you through the process in easy-to-follow steps.

Starting a Non-profit Organization
This in-depth article provides comprehensive advice and materials for anyone who is considering starting a nonprofit organization.

Get Ready, Get Set - What you need to know before starting a nonprofit
Is starting a nonprofit the best solution for your organization? This how-to guide will help you assess what's right for your organizations objectives and goals.

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The Child Care and Development Fund helps States, Territories, and Federally recognized Tribes and Tribal Organizations provide child care for low-income families and increase the affordability and quality of child care and development services.
For additional information, contact your state Child Care Development Fund Administrator.

Child and Adult Care Food Program
Funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides Federal funds for meals and snacks served to eligible children in child care centers and family child care homes. Click here for the list of state agencines administering the Child Nutrition Programs.

Child Care Partnership Project
The Child Care Partnership Project was established through the Child Care Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to provide information and technical assistance to build and sustain partnerships that improve the quality, supply, and access to child care for working families. The work of The Child Care Partnership Project is carried out by The Finance Project, in collaboration with the Families and Work Institute and the National Governors’ Association.

The Children's Defense Fund's Head Start Program
Every child deserves the child care and early education — the "head start" — that they need to get a strong start in life, and to be safe and secure while their parents are at work.

Children's Bureau
The agency provides grants to States, Tribes and communities to operate a range of child welfare services including child protective services (child abuse and neglect) family preservation and support, foster care, adoption and independent living. In addition, the agency makes major investments in staff training, technology and innovative programs.

Early Childhood Development Program
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Low-income persons living in public housing cannot easily find jobs and stay employed if they have to leave their children unsupervised at home. By providing child-care subsidies to local organizations serving public housing projects located in EZ/ECs, the ECD Program frees parents and guardians to get job training, find jobs, and stay employed.

Afterschool.gov
You can search this database for information about over 100 sources of funding from many different government agencies. Searching the database provides a summary of each program and a link to details about each funding source.

The American Indian Head Start Quality Improvement Center
AIHSQIC is the primary training and technical assistance provider for American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start programs nationwide.

GrantsNet
GrantsNet is a tool for finding and exchanging information about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and selected Federal grant programs. The Web site provides information on how to find grant information, search for funding, how to apply, useful resources, and administering grants.

The National Education Association
Created by the National Education Association, The NEA Foundation empowers public education employees to innovate, take risks, and become agents for change to improve teaching and learning in our society.

The Mott Foundation
This Web site has won plenty of awards. And rightly so. It's one of the best on the Internet and it has plenty of information on community education, especially the 21st Century Learning Center program. C. S. Mott Foundation Grants Database - Search the Grants Database for current and past grants available in the U.S.

National Children's Facilities Network and Community Investment Collaborative for Kids CICK)
The National Children's Facilities Network is a coalition of nonprofit financial and technical assistance intermediaries involved in planning, developing, and financing facilities for low-income child care and Head Start programs.

USDA Office of Rural Development
Low interest loans available for child care facilities

U.S. Department of Education
Through the Department of Education, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CLC) program provided $450 million to rural and inner-city public schools during FY 2000 to address the educational needs of communities during after-school hours, weekends and summers.

The Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance
This web site gives you access to a database of all Federal programs available to State and local governments (including the District of Columbia); federally-recognized Indian tribal governments; Territories (and possessions) of the United States; domestic public, quasi-public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions; specialized groups; and individuals.

Bernard van Leer Foundation's Early Childhood Development
All projects supported by the Foundation concentrate on young children. Grants are only made for projects concerned with the development of children (aged 0-8 years) growing up in circumstances of social and economic disadvantage.

Children's Foundations
This extensive and valuable list of foundations that support children is from FundsNet.com.

Carnegie Corporation
Building on its history and past programs in the field, Carnegie Corporation will dedicate a major part of its grant funds over the next few years to education reform, beginning with early childhood education and extending to higher education. The education program will focus on three key areas: Early Childhood Education Urban School Reform Higher Education.

Education Funders
Education Grantmakers
This extensive and valuable list of foundations and grantmakers that support education is from FundsNet.com.

Schott Foundation
The Schott Foundation's mission is to develop and strengthen the movement for equity in education and child care. This site features information about current initiatives underway in Massachusetts including the Leadership Pathways Initiative (diversity and leadership work), information about the benefits of early care and education, and more.

The Foundation Centre
The Foundation Center is an independent national service organization established by foundations to provide information on foundation and corporate giving. You can access child care related funding foundations through the site's new "searchzone" by typing in "child care grants."

eSchool News
A great site listing up-to-the-minute grant programs, funding sources, and technology funding information. Also offers information on grant proposal writing.

Grants Web
The Society of Research Administrators offers another source of funding for child care and educational related proijects.

Scholastic Awards and Grants
From Scholastic, numerous award programs designed to inspire and reward excellence among students and educators, prestigious awards and grants.

TeachNet
Sponsored by the AT&T Learning Network, seeks to improve student achievement by providing training, grants, networking and resource sharing to teachers.

Dow Chemical Company Grants
Supports many school districts/school boards and efforts in and around communities in which Dow is located.

IBM Philanthropy
Provides corporate giving at local, national, and international levels.

National Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program
Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce

Women's Grants
Another great resource from FundsNet, covers grant monies available from various organizations and funders for women and young girls.

AT&T Foundation
AT&T Foundation focuses support on education, and they encourage efforts to win student interest and involvement in mathematics, science and engineering. You may submit proposals at any time.

Bank of America Foundation
Bank of America Foundation places special emphasis on providing educational opportunities for young children so they will be ready to learn and achieve when they begin school, through programs like the Success By 6. However, they do not consider funding requests from K-12 schools, so you will have to partner with a non-profit organization in order to receive funds.

Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation seeks to enhance educational opportunity, especially for low-income and chronically disadvantaged groups. They want you to write a brief letter of inquiry about your project before you write a full proposal. Applications are considered year-round.

SBC Foundation
SBC Foundation has education as its main priority, because today's students need the skills and knowledge to work in a world where advanced technologies are the norm and because education helps sustain economic growth. They prefer to give in communities where a significant number of SBC Communications employees live and work: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, California and Nevada. Local or statewide non-profits will have to partner with schools for these grants.

Rosie's For All Kids Foundation
Rosie O'Donnell established her For All Kids Foundation, Inc. in 1997 to provide financial support to nonprofit programs serving economically disadvantaged and at-risk children and their families. Since its inception, the foundation has helped thousands of children across the country through grant awards to child care, after-school, education and other essential programs. The foundation's main focus is center-based child care, and first priority is given to programs serving low-income, urban areas, where many families struggle to find quality child care and early childhood education programs.

A best-seller in multiple editions for more than a decade is back in a major new edition!

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Find the money to operate your child care facility!

With new samples and examples, the authors tell you how to raise a lot more money for less effort, and answers the following questions:

• Who gives money to nonprofit organizations?
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Visit our Online Catalog for more information on this valuable resource.