Because we believe that children’s futures are shaped by experiences in the earliest years of life, the Endowment supports efforts to provide high-quality early childhood education for children from birth to age five throughout the state, especially those negatively affected by poverty and other challenges. We have a special interest in promoting the success of youth from communities of color who are disproportionately affected by such challenges.
Related Grants
Early Learning Indiana was awarded a $12 million grant in 2022 to build upon work supported by Endowment grants of $15 million in 2019 and $20 million in 2014. These grants are helping Early Learning Indiana to expand and develop statewide programs to increase access to high-quality child care and preschool programs, provide professional education opportunities for caregivers and teachers, and encourage families with young children to seek out and select quality early learning options for their children. LEARN MORE
Early Years Initiative (Early Years) was established in 2023 with an initial $60 million Endowment grant to Early Learning Indiana. The aim of the statewide initiative is to support the developmental needs of very young children. Since the launch of Early Years, over 150 grants have been awarded to help ensure Indiana’s infants and toddlers develop the foundational knowledge and skills needed to support their future learning and development. LEARN MORE
Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana – Expansion of Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), a national model program that began more than four decades ago, is a unique intervention that pairs a registered nurse with a first-time mother by the second trimester of the mother’s pregnancy. NFP nurses meet with mothers on a regular basis until the child becomes two years of age to share timely health information, parenting advice, knowledge about child development and more that serve to both empower the mother to be a strong and responsive parent and to help her monitor and support her child’s development through the child’s earliest years of life. Under the leadership of Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana (GCSI), thousands of Indiana mothers and their babies have benefited from the evidence-based NFP model. GCSI was awarded Endowment grants of $3 million in 2016 and $12 million in 2021to support the expansion of NFP to more Indiana mothers and their children. Supported by an Endowment grant of $10 million in 2023, NFP is further expanding its program across the country and exploring the effectiveness of expanding the model to include mothers with multiple children and/or mothers who join the program later in their pregnancies.
Ivy Tech Community College was awarded a $21.9 million grant to help strengthen the early childhood education workforce in Indiana. Ivy Tech will expand its current training programs (which currently enroll more than 1,900 students), develop new and flexible training options for early childhood education workers and offer financial supports for workers to participate in Ivy Tech early childhood training programs.
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