Early Childhood Education Funding Cycle

Overview

The spring 2026 funding cycle will support nonprofit organizations and projects that align with our Innovation and Proven Professional Development (PD) strategies. These strategies specifically fund professional development organizations, early childhood networks, institutions of higher education, and local and state early childhood departments that are designing and/or implementing larger-scale models (at 5+ early childhood programs). Here is more information about these strategies.

To learn more about the qualifications and the types of projects we fund through these strategies, please click here.

This cycle has up to $1.5 million in funding available to support innovation and proven professional development proposals. We are exclusively interested in projects that address the highest needs identified in our recent engagement with partners and the gaps in our learning portfolios. 
Our 2026 priorities include:

• Affordable and scalable instructional coaching models. 
• Leadership development and retention models. This cycle, we aim to support models for two key groups:
  • Elementary School Principals
  • Leaders from under-resourced communities
• Network or community-wide substitute or floater teacher pools. 
• Reinvestment funding for recent Stranahan grantees. We are especially interested in proposals that aim to:
  • Refine or expand existing models based on insights gained from earlier funded work.
  • Strengthen the evidence base through more rigorous evaluation.

Additional consideration will be given to organizations that best meet our overall program priorities, including being able to demonstrate:

• An understanding of how race, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, and other factors impact access to high-quality early childhood education and career advancement.
• Leadership reflective of communities most affected by disparities in early childhood outcomes.
• Opportunities to pilot or develop a promising early-stage idea.
• Clear rationale for how time-limited funding will enable the organization to expand and deepen its impact post-grant period.
• A well-defined evaluation plan that includes at least one standardized assessment related to teacher or classroom outcomes.

Restrictions: We will not consider proposals that include requests for:

• Ongoing professional development programming and operations.
• Stranahan-specific support for scholarships or tuition assistance (can be part of a larger project).
• Significant staff incentives (i.e., stipends, gift cards, pay).
• Projects not exclusively impacting children ages birth to five (including kindergarten).
• Projects in which more than 25% of the proposed participants are currently or could be employed by the applicant organization.
• Projects serving early childhood professionals outside of the United States.

Can organizations submit more than one proposal? Typically, we only permit one LOI per organization. The only exception may be for colleges and universities or fiscal sponsors. Please note that we do not anticipate advancing more than one proposal from any single institution or fiscal sponsor beyond the LOI stage.

To help you prepare, please click here to view a copy of the requirements for the LOI and Application phases.  

For a list of our most commonly asked questions, please click here. Question Period from November 5 through November 24: Our team will answer questions about this funding opportunity and the application process via our [email protected] email box.

Cycle Timeline:
December 3, 2025: Preliminary Screening LOIs are due via the online portal by 12:00 p.m. Eastern.
December 17, 2025: Applicants will be notified if their proposal is advanced to the next round.
January 20, 2026: Full proposals are due via the online portal by 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time.