In 2003, The McCormick Foundation (formerly the McCormick Tribune Foundation) partnered with CURL to coordinate a new kind of project to collaboratively create sustainable protocols for professional development in early childhood education programs. To that end, McCormick invested in agency-sponsored childcare programs to enhance organizational health and build their capacity to recruit, train, and retain high quality directors and teachers, thereby sustaining high quality childcare programming. For this particular project, the partnership defined 'professional development' broadly to include things such as teacher education, director education and training, board and administrative development, fundraising capacity building, and infrastructure support.

The guiding principles of the Professional Development Initiative were:

 * Collaborative: A partnership that brought together university facilitators, organization CEOs, site directors, and teachers to engage in a dialogue about professional development needs. 

* Holistic: Created professional development plans that articulate agency goals and strategies for recruitment, training, and retention of the childcare staff. 

* Flexible: Funding from The McCormick Foundation to address needs in these areas as determined by each of the agencies.

 * Sustainable: Five-year plans that address professional development protocol and the long-term fiscal health of the program. 

The partnership continues from June 2010 to the present. There was a realization, both by CURL and the McCormick Foundation, that now, more than ever, this collaborative partnership must continue to in order to address the changes in the early education field, while sustaining the high-quality educational services they have built over the years. 

To that end, CURL will continue to utilize this collaborative (inter- and intra-agency) and cohort-based (i.e. policy fellows and program leaders) model for the next two years (2010-2012) with four goals:

 1) Professional Development: Continue targeted financial support of the participating agencies’ program quallity and professional development opportunities for classroom staff;
2) Programmatic Health and Opportunities: Utilize community assessment data profiles and other sources of data to facilitate each agency’s ability to proactively address changes in their community, funding, and programming; 
3) Policy: Expand policy voice of the eight agencies via formal dialogue with key stakeholders in the field of early childhood education including advocates, elected officials, and funding bodies;
4) “Vibrant Agencies in Changing Times” workshops/seminars: Collaboratively develop a series of workshops and/or seminars on how to best adapt and lead our agencies and programs in the midst of a changing landscape.