Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood

OVERVIEW: The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood supports research and “development projects” with the potential to improve the lives of young children in the U.S.

IP TAKE: The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood seeks to “maximize a grant’s potential impact” by supporting “those imaginative proposals that exhibit the greatest chance of improving the lives of young children, on a national scale.” This is a great source of support for researchers piloting innovative ideas in child development and early childhood education. Most grants support projects conducted at well-known research universities, hospitals and institutes, however, so smaller organizations might have a harder time here. Read over Caplan’s application guidelines before submitting an LOI. Due dates tend to fall at the end of September each year.

PROFILE: The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood, also known at the Theresa and Frank Caplan Foundation, was established in 2014 with seed money from the estate of Theresa Caplan. Theresa and her husband, Frank, a co-founder of the Creative Playthings toy company. The couple founded the Princeton Center for Infancy and Early Childhood in 1975, and together authored a series of bestselling books on child development in the 1970s. Based in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, this foundation "is an incubator of promising research and development projects that appear likely to improve the welfare of young children." According to its tax filings, the foundation’s mission is to “provide grants for innovative and creative projects and research.” Its funding areas are early childhood welfare, early childhood education and play and parenting education.

Grants for Early Childhood Education

The Caplan Foundation names three areas of focus for its grantmaking:

  • Early Childhood Welfare grants support “projects that seek to perfect child rearing practices and to identify models that can provide creative, caring environments in which all young children thrive.” The foundation uses the term “welfare” broadly to refer to aspects of children’s “physical and mental health, safety, nutrition, education, play, familial support, acculturation, societal integration and childcare.”

  • Early Childhood Education and Play funding focuses on the intellectual development of children from birth to age seven in settings including but not limited to home, school and childcare centers. Grants for education prioritize “the development of innovative curricula and research based on pedagogical standards.” Funding also supports research and development for “imaginative play materials and learning environments.”

  • Grantmaking for Parenting Education, in contrast, supports programs that work directly with parents and caregivers of young children, as opposed to research and curriculum development. Areas of interest include “programs that teach parents about developmental psychology, cultural child rearing differences, pedagogy, issues of health, prenatal care and diet.” The foundation also funds programs that “provide both cognitive and emotional support to parents.”

It is worth noting that Caplan’s grants do not support program operation or expansion, the purchase of supplies or equipment, events, programs with religious content, medical research or programs for children in other countries.

A past Caplan grant supported a study at Columbia University of the efficacy of a “family nurture intervention” that focused on refining “core mechanisms involving emotional and bio-behavioral co-regulation between mothers and children.” Another grantee, an educational research team at Vanderbilt University, used funding to develop and test its “Playing to Learn” curriculum, which aims to help disabled children with complex play skills. Other grants have supported research and program development at organizations including Delaware’s Nemours Hospital for Children, Boston College, Purdue University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Important Grant Details

Grants generally range from $30,000 to $65,000.

  • Grantmaking is limited to the U.S.

  • Most grants support educational research and program development at well-known research universities.

  • A complete list of current and past grantees is available on the foundation's website.

This funder runs a single annual grantmaking cycles and accepts letters of inquiry via email with a due date that usually falls at the end of September. Detailed guidelines for letters of inquiry are provided at Caplan’s website. Full proposals are accepted by invitation only. General questions may be submitted to the foundation via email at info@earlychildhoodfoundation.org.

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