Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Provide services for youth preschool to kindergarten age.
• Are incorporated as an IRC 501(c)(3) public charity.
• Are located in and primarily serve the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Guidelines

The Gateway Children’s Charity grant funds early childhood programs that support children living in underserved metropolitan St. Louis communities.

GCC provides two types of grants:

Expansion

GCC offers grants for capital expenses to assist high-quality early childhood programs.  Expansion grants are one-time grants awarded for capital expenditures with maximum funding of $100,000.  Programs must be able to show how expansion supports student achievement.

Project examples include but are not limited to:

• Construction costs for classroom build out;
• Equipment or curricular resources to outfit learning spaces;
• The grant’s intention is to support standalone capital projects that can be completed in full with the award; partial funding requests for broader initiatives are generally outside the scope of this opportunity.

Capacity Building

GCC offers grants for early childhood programs that request support in quality improvement initiatives.  These one-year grants may be awarded up to $50,000.

Project examples include but are not limited to:

• Purchasing and implementing research-based curricula or assessments;
• Teacher or administrator professional development;
• The grant is not intended for routine or recurring accreditation fees.