Into the Fray: How a Funders Coalition Restored Momentum for Early Learning in Minnesota
Expanding access to high-quality early childhood education requires funder coalitions with results-focused advocacy strategies designed to build public support and political consensus at the state level, a report from the Foundation for Child Development finds. Into the Fray: How a Funders Coalition Restored Momentum for Early Learning in Minnesota (27 pages, PDF) describes how the School Readiness Funders Coalition forged a common evidence-based approach to the issue with an agenda that called for funding a state cabinet-level office of early learning, enforcing the goal of having every five-year-old ready for school by 2020, and adopting accountability measures. Funded by the McKnight Foundation, one of the members of the coalition, the report notes that the group helped Minnesota win federal grants totaling nearly $90 million over five years to fund an ambitious cycle of early learning experiments and model rigorous evaluation and funding mechanisms.
