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Preschool Development Grant
Minnesota’s Preschool Development Birth through Five grant helps align family and early childhood systems across the state to improve children's access to high-quality early care and education.
The grant is a partnership between the Departments of Children, Youth, and Families; Education; Health; and Human Services, along with the Children's Cabinet. Learn more about the federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Minnesota has been awarded four grants:
- 2024–27: Renewal grant, $24 million
- 2023–24: Planning grant, $4 million
- 2020–23: Renewal grant, $27 million
- 2019–20: Planning grant, $4.7 million
Watch the video to learn more about how we can work together to improve early childhood systems and create a state where all young families can thrive.
What the grant supports
The grant supports strengthening Minnesota’s early childhood system. Grant activities are determined through an in-depth needs assessment and strategic planning process, which includes partnering with agencies, communities and families across the state. Strategic priorities for 2023 and beyond are:
- Priority Area 1: Families can access the early childhood services they need to help their young children thrive.
- Priority Area 2: Available early childhood supports and services achieve high quality standards by meeting the needs of children and families and driving toward positive outcomes.
- Priority Area 3: Families and communities play an active role in informing the planning, implementation, and oversight of state and local early childhood efforts.
- Priority Area 4: A sustainable and comprehensive statewide infrastructure enables the state to implement a streamlined early childhood system.
Learn more in the Minnesota Early Childhood Strategic Refresh (PDF) report and in the community-facing brief, A Minnesota Dedicated to Young Children and Families (PDF).
In order to meet these goals, the Preschool Development Grant has funded the following projects:
- Launch of Help Me Connect, a virtual navigation tool that links families with young children—and the professionals who serve them—to a wide range of services and resources. This includes child development programs, basic needs support, mental health care, parenting education, and early childhood workforce and leadership development resources.
- MN StoryCollective, a storytelling project that aims to create a strong feedback loop with community and provide a regular, flexible source of qualitative data based on community stories so that state programs, policies and practices better meet the needs of all families.
- Accelerating and coordinating coaching and technical assistance across mixed delivery partnerships.
- Piloted a Pay Equity Pilot that improved compensation and financial stability for early childhood care and education providers through direct payments. Read the report (PDF).
- Launch of Community Resource Hubs, now sustained as Community Resource Centers, which are community-based coordinated points of entry that provide relationship-based service navigation and other supportive services for expecting and parenting families and youth.
- Working to coordinate eligibility and services for families through legal and technical solutions.
- Supporting the early childhood workforce through revising the Knowledge and Competency Framework, piloting early childhood Grow Your Own and CDAs in high schools, and through compensation supports.
The Preschool Development Grant is awarded to states through a competitive application process and requires annual reports for all grants. The state has also completed a sustainability planning guide to support ongoing efforts after the grant funds conclude.
Grant applications and summaries:
- Renewal Grant 2024 (PDF): The state was awarded this three-year $24 million federal grant beginning September 2024. The document outlines the state’s proposed activities, timelines and budget.
- Planning Grant 2023 (PDF): Outlines plans for the $4 million PDG planning grant the state was awarded for calendar year 2023.
- Renewal Grant 2019 (PDF): The state was awarded this three-year $26.7 million federal grant beginning December 31, 2019. The document outlines the state’s proposed activities, timelines and budget. Note that the state was awarded less than application so activities and budgets may have changed.
- Planning Grant 2018 (PDF): Minnesota’s application for federal funding. The document outlines the state’s proposed activities, timelines and budget. Note that the state was awarded less than application so activities and budgets may have changed.
Annual and mid-grant reports:
Additional resources:
- Preschool Development Grant Guiding Principles (PDF): Summary that defines the guiding principles of the Preschool Development Grant work: Racial Equity, Trauma and Healing Informed, Intersectionality, Interagency Collaboration, Geographic Responsiveness, Whole Family Systems, and Belonging and Inclusion.
- Minnesota Preschool Development Grant Sustainability Planning Guide (PDF): This is a guide created by the Management and Analysis Division at Minnesota Management and Budget to support sustainability planning for Minnesota’s Preschool Development Grant.
Minnesota is committed to ongoing learning and improvement in the state’s early childhood system as well as specifically for the Preschool Development Grant. The state has completed two evaluations as a part of the grant.
- PDG Evaluation Summary (PDF): Results from the Improve Group's 2022 evaluation of the Preschool Development Grant
- Evaluation of Minnesota's Preschool Development Grant: Conversations with Families (PDF): Results of the Improve Group's 2022 evaluation of the Preschool Development Grant where they heard from families about their experiences accessing and using services, as well as their thoughts about what works well and what can be improved. This document is also available in Hmong and Spanish.
- Impact of 2021 Investments in Early Childhood Care and Education (PDF): As part of Minnesota's work on the Early Childhood Governance and Financing grant, the state partnered with Wilder Research to evaluate impacts of federal COVID relief funds invested in early care and education.
- Preschool Development Grants Birth through Five Program Performance Evaluation 2020 (PDF): Minnesota's program performance evaluation plan to meet requirements of the Preschool Development Grant and provide a plan for evaluation in the strategic plan.
- Principles of Community Engagement (PDF): Summarizes lessons learned from the Preschool Development Grant on best practices in conducting community engagement.
- MN Preschool Development Grant Indigenous Evaluation 2023 (PDF): Wilder Research and Bowman Performance Consulting conducted an Indigenous evaluation for the PDG that honors the unique cultural and tribal sovereignty of Minnesota’s American Indian communities.
- Indigenous Evaluation 101 Guidebook (PDF): Provides guidance on how to conduct evaluation that honors the culture and strengths of Indigenous communities. Developed for the State of Minnesota, their grantees, and other organizations that are working within Indigenous communities, in particular for the Preschool Development Grant and other initiatives that center children and families, by Bowman Performance Consulting (Shawano, WI) and Wilder Research (Saint Paul, MN).
Minnesota has implemented several major initiatives funded by the Preschool Development Grant.
- Coordinating Eligibility and Services Agreement (PDF): Overview of the eligibility and Service coordination agreement between the Minnesota departments of Commerce, Education, Health, and Human Services.
- Toolkit for Healing-Centered Practice One-pager (PDF): A brief description of the Toolkit for Healing-Centered Practice, which was created in partnership with the MN Association for Children's Mental Health.
- Community Solutions for Healthy Development Final Report (PDF): This report details implementation of the Community Solutions Fund, grantees' successes and needs, and lessons learned about equity-centered grant-making during the 2020-23 grant period.
- Community Resource Hubs Final Report (PDF): This report provides findings from Minnesota's Community Resource Hubs pilot program.
- Minnesota Business Vitality Council Report on Supports and Resources for Child Care Businesses (PDF): Final report of an interagency working group, convened by the Department of Employment and Economic Development and co-facilitated by Preschool Development Grant staff, with findings and recommendations related to the economic development impacts of the early care and education sector and opportunities to enhance supports for child care businesses.
- Community Resource Hubs Interim Report (PDF): This report provides initial findings from Minnesota’s Community Resource Hubs pilot program.
- Prevention and Promotion Brief (PDF): How collaborative state programs promote well-being and provide prevention services.
- Community Resource Hubs Locations and Biographies (PDF): Includes map and biographies of local community resource hubs across the state of Minnesota.
- Frequently Asked Questions: Coordinating Eligibility and Services (PDF): Covers common questions around the eligibility and service coordination agreement between the Minnesota departments of Education, Health, and Human Services.
- Early Childhood Coordinating Eligibility and Services Summary (PDF): This report is a product of a cross-agency workgroup with recommendations on coordinating eligibility and services for children and families.
- Report: A Marketing Plan for Effectively Communicating with Parents (PDF): This marketing plan spells out what state agencies and their contractors must do to effectively communicate with all parents and how to go about doing it.
- Report: Exploring and Developing Communication Strategies with Parents (PDF): Preschool Development Grant funds supported the creation of this report to increase culturally relevant parent involvement practices through effective communication strategies. Wilder Research found three primary themes: trust, two-way communication, and technology.
Prior to the 2023 Strategic Refresh, Minnesota completed an in-depth needs assessment and strategic plan in 2019. The needs assessment and strategic plan focused on expecting and parenting families with young children who are experiencing racial, geographic and economic inequities. The work was completed in partnership with 10 community organizations: the six Minnesota Initiative Foundations in Greater Minnesota, Children's Defense Fund MN, the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center, Minnesota Tribal Resources for Early Childhood Care, and Indigenous Visioning.
- Preschool Development Grant Strategic Plan 2020 (PDF): This document is Minnesota’s strategic plan to meet requirements of the Preschool Development Grant.
- Preschool Development Grant Needs Assessment 2020 (PDF): This document is Minnesota’s comprehensive needs assessment to meet requirements of the Preschool Development Grant.
- Community Needs Assessment Findings for Preschool Development Grant 2020 (PDF): This document is the final report on findings from the community engagement portion of the Preschool Development Grant needs assessment.
- Preschool Development Grant 2020-22 Strategic Plan Summary (PDF): This document provides a summary of the 2020-22 Preschool Development Grant Strategic Plan. This document is also available in Hmong, Spanish and Somali.
- Information Contributing to Preschool Development Grant Needs Assessment (PDF): This graphic summarizes the Preschool Development Grant activities that are contributing to the needs assessment.