Application Process
Even Start offers grants to local family literacy projects that integrate early childhood education, adult literacy (adult basic and secondary-level education and instruction for English-language learners), parenting education, and interactive parent and child literacy activities for low-income families with parents who are eligible for services under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act and their children from birth through age 7.
To apply for an Even Start grant, fill out the online application on iGrants.
To qualify as an "eligible entity" for an Even Start grant, an applicant must be part of an equal partnership between one or more local educational agencies (LEAs) and one or more profit/nonprofit community-based organizations, public agencies other than an LEA, institutions of higher education, or public or private nonprofit organizations of demonstrated quality other than an LEA.
A partnership may take a number of different forms. In each case, however, the partners must clearly delineate their respective roles and functions, identify the partner(s) that will serve as the fiscal agent, and agree in writing to any required assurances and authorizations. An LEA must act as the fiscal agent. The partnership provisions in the Even Start law strengthen the connections between schools and communities and improve the program’s ability to reach families in greatest need of services through community outreach. It is important to distinguish between the many collaborations with organizations needed to implement a family literacy program (the average Even Start program has 26 collaborations for core services alone) and the more formal arrangement among the partners that constitute the applicant “eligible entity.” The eligible entity partnership should be reflective of the organizations providing the four required service components. (See page 1-1 for listing of components.)
In addition to the formal partners who comprise the eligible entity applying for funding and overseeing the grant, an Even Start project has a number of collaborators who provide direct instructional or support services to participating families and may contribute to the local project matching or cost share. Even Start projects are cooperative projects that build on high-quality existing community resources to create a new range of services to serve families' educational needs. These collaborators might include such local agencies as: the community library, the community college, the welfare agency, a child care program, a professional association, or a volunteer organization. Projects are encouraged to cultivate community investment in the program by building on high-quality community resources or bolstering the quality of these community resources, if necessary, by supplementing those services.
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