Child care grants are essential to funding a quality program. To assist our visitors, child care online has done extensive research into the question of “Where to find grants for child care programs” and brings you this feature section.
For-profit Child Care – The Straight Facts First
While there is a lot of talk about “how to find grants” in the child care field, most caregivers, especially independent home child care operators or persons starting a private or for-profit child care facility, don’t realize that it is almost impossible for them to find grant money from any level of government or from almost all of the sources listed in childcare.net’s or any other grant list. That is of course, with the exception of perhaps that which might be obtained from new business startup programs and the odd program operated by their provincial or state governments, generally under the Department of Children and Family Services. You may have to find a financial adviser to help you with your business.
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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.
In Canada, small business owners can learn about financing initiatives of all sorts on Industry Canada’s Sources of Financing Web page.
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.
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: [email protected] so we can post the resource and help others.
