Early Childhood Education Provider Grant

Overview

The Stranahan Foundation was formed in 1944 by brothers Frank D. and Robert A. Stranahan, founders of the Champion Spark Plug Company in Toledo, Ohio. Today, the Stranahan Foundation continues to be family-governed and is welcoming its fifth generation of leaders. In addition to a national funding program aimed at increasing the access to high-quality early childhood teaching and learning, the Foundation empowers family members to serve as “community stewards” through building grantmaking relationships with nonprofits addressing community-based needs within the Foundation’s five focus areas: Human Services; Ecological Well-being; Education; Arts & Culture; and Physical & Mental Health. 

We seek to increase access to high-quality early childhood teaching and learning by supporting programs across the country that are: 

• Directly improving the knowledge, skills, or practice of early childhood education professionals; and/or 
• Working to expand and retain a thriving workforce of early childhood education professionals.  

Our fall cycle is open to provider applicants only. 

Support for Providers: We support early childhood education providers seeking to improve their own professional learning and development systems and/or enhance staff recruitment and retention via a specific project. Applicants in this category must be able to demonstrate alignment with the needs of the communities they serve and explain how requested grant support would enable them to expand or attain high-quality teaching and learning practices.  

All proposals must: 

• Exclusively focus on improving early childhood education settings or its professionals 
• Predominantly focus on serving the needs of young children from low-income families. 
• Demonstrate the organization has the capacity and leadership to ensure quality, execute the proposed work, and use data to inform continuous improvement.

Funding is available up to a total of $150,000 over no more than a three-year period. Please note, while awards for individual projects will vary, we anticipate the average grant size to be $80,000 for a two-year period.  

 Applicants must submit a project budget and timeline that aligns with the scope of the project, supports proposed activities, and clearly connects those activities with budget line-item requests. 

If approved, funding would not be made available until January 1.