• An overview of the Initiative
• The First Five Years
• Current Project Goals and Objectives

In 2003, The McCormick Foundation partnered with Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) to coordinate a new kind of project that would collaboratively create sustainable protocols for professional development in early childhood education programs. To that end, the Foundation invested in nine¹ 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 Foundation defined ‘professional development’ as teacher education, director education and training, board and administrative development, fundraising capacity building, and infrastructure support.

The eight participating agencies represent a microcosm of community-based childcare in the city of Chicago.  They serve culturally diverse populations and are located in low-income but rapidly changing communities throughout the city. While each faces their own unique challenges, they are representative of the common issues surrounding early childcare professional development including recruitment, training, retention, and overall organizational health.

1 Bethel New Life, originally funded for this initiative, transferred its early childhood programming to another organization – Mary Crane. The decision was made to opt out of the initiative and the group has reduced its membership to 8 organizations.