Child Care Grants is a grant from the Santa Barbara Foundation that funds nonprofit child care providers in Santa Barbara County to increase organizational capacity and expand access to quality early care. Awards of up to $15,000 are available, with a deadline of September 1, 2026. Eligible applicants are 501(c)(3) nonprofit child care providers serving children in Santa Barbara County, California.

The program addresses the county's estimated deficit of 9,371 child care spaces for children ages 0–5 and supports workforce development so providers can staff centers adequately and keep costs affordable for families.

Child Care Grant Guidelines - Santa Barbara Foundation Santa Barbara Foundation LOGO Nonprofit Grants Portal » Board/Committee Member Portal » Become a Community Champion Critical Needs Response Fund Collaboration For Social Impact 2025 Child Care Grant Guidelines The Santa Barbara Foundation believes that every child deserves safe and quality child care and education.

The quality of child care is important as it directly impacts a child’s development, including the ability to learn and to build healthy relationships. The demand for child care services exceeds the supply of available spots. This has led to an increased need for child care providers.

However, if providers are unable to staff their centers adequately, they must limit the number of children they can care for, to assure compliance and quality, resulting in higher prices for the available spots. The limited supply of child care services can drive up costs for parents, who can find themselves spending over a third of their household income.

[1] According to the 2024 Santa Barbara County Child Care Facilities Needs Assessment, Santa Barbara County faces an estimated deficit of 9,371 spaces for children ages 0-5 in licensed care facilities, showing that there remains a need to grow the early learning and care workforce to address child care needs.

To increase organizational capacity amongst nonprofit child care providers and meet the critical needs of our communities’ youngest members, the Santa Barbara Foundation is offering a grants program in support of quality early care and education programs and the services that support and enable their success.

This year’s grant cycle will support the Foundation’s Child Care Initiative by focusing funds on child care sector resiliency efforts that strengthen the childcare system in the County of Santa Barbara.

[1] The 2024 Child Care Needs Assessment, California Child Care Resource & Referral Network The Santa Barbara Foundation’s intent in offering this funding is to support and strengthen child care providers (for children between birth and five years of age) and the integral direct service providers that support them.

The proposal must address one or more of the following areas: Childcare Workforce Pathway and Skill Development Increase the number of qualified infant and toddler workforce professionals in the County.

Strategies may include: developing or participating in coaching and mentoring programs to enhance skills; increasing the number of staff seeking infant/toddler qualifications who enroll in Early Childhood Education units; collaborating with other service providers or child care organizations (i.e., SBCEO Child Care Planning Council, Children’s Resource and Referral of SBC, etc.); Supportive Organizational Business Model Building a supporting organizational climate may include: through leadership professional development, facilitate the creation of new, licensed infant and toddler childcare spaces in Santa Barbara County.

increasing the ability to interpret data for goal setting for future program direction; participating in technical assistance program that will support with facility grant applications, help in seuring lease or purchase agreements for operators, provide facility design recommendations, and help in navigating the planning and development system.

participating in a sustainable technical assistance model that integrates business sustainability best practices; assuring the successful day to day operation of a center; and Strategies should be cognizant of incorporating a family’s composition, language, and culture into their approach of collaborating with them.

Applicants should clearly identify a proven family engagement strategy to build relationships between themselves and families to maximize a child’s success . Strategies may include: promoting partnerships with families; fostering family leadership; and building support and opportunities for families to foster their engagement in their child’s development and education.

Building Content Specific Areas of Leadership Strategies may include the following: promoting fair and equitable access to child care opportunities; effective strategies for working with English language learners (ELL’s); and working with special populations including special needs, homeless and foster children, or addressing other evident emerging needs.

Priority will be given to organizations that: Increase Child Care Workforce Pathway and Skill Development; support career paths for early care and education professionals, foster leadership and ongoing professional development opportunities, and other strategies that will attract and retain high-quality educators; Foster an organizational business model to retain and support Child Care Workforce; Support child health, nutrition, and social-emotional well-being in a language-rich learning environment that respects diversity; Demonstrate adoption of, or progress toward the use of, best practices for parent engagement, such as Standard 7: Families in NAEYC Program Standards and/or the Protective Factors Framework; Demonstrate participation in, or a plan toward participating in, the Santa Barbara County’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) and/or the NAEYC Accreditation process; and Demonstrate engagement and or alignment with community-wide child development goals, i.e. CAPC, Child Care Planning Council, etc. Funding Amounts and Duration The maximum award for Child Care Grants is $15,000 .

The grant review panel may reduce or increase award amounts at its discretion. The grant period is up to one year from the award date. Reporting requirements will be noted in the award letter.

Child Care grants are not for: General operating support; Services and programs that are not providing services for early care and education; Reimbursement for activities/purchases that occurred prior to the grant award date. Please visit the Eligibility Criteria & FAQs for a complete list of what the foundation does not fund.

Organizations must be certified as tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or use a fiscal sponsor with 501(c)(3) tax status. Applications that do not contain a valid EIN (tax ID) number will not be considered. Organizations using a fiscal sponsor must review the Eligibility Criteria & FAQs for additional information and instructions.

The foundation accepts applications from public entities such as schools, universities, and libraries through an affiliate or supporting 501(c)(3) organization. Please see the Eligibility Criteria & FAQs for additional qualifying information and instructions.

An agency acting as the fiscal sponsor on behalf of a community collaborative may be eligible to submit proposals on behalf of its own agency needs as well as the needs of the collaborative. Please contact a member of the Community Engagement Team for more information and to discuss your specific situation.

The child care provider receiving funding must be fully licensed by the State of California to provide childcare for the age groups it is serving and be in full compliance with the applicable codes governing childcare facilities. For licensing questions, please speak with the Child Care Duty Officer at Community Care Licensing by calling (805) 562-0400.

If the applicant is not a child care provider, the organization must be providing a direct service either on behalf of a child care provider to the children or families of the provider or be providing professional development or a training activity to staff of the provider. In addition, there must be an MOU, service contract, formal agreement, or staff enrollment process in place prior to applying.

The Santa Barbara Foundation utilizes an online application platform. Please follow the instructions below to access, complete and submit your application to the foundation. To Register on SBF’s SmartSimple Platform Visit the Santa Barbara Foundation’s online platform at https://santabarbarafoundation.

us-1. smartsimple. com/s_Login.

jsp Click the “Register” button beneath “New to the System? ” on the home page. Select “Nonprofit” when prompted to choose which option you are applying as.

You will need to first search to verify if your organization is already in our system by typing the organization name into the box. If your organization name appears, proceed to section A below. If your organization name does not appear, proceed to section B below.

If your organization name appears, you will select it and continue to fill in the contact information section to create a user profile for yourself. You will then receive an email with a link to activate your account and create your password. If your organization name does not appear, you will click on the link to “add a new organization”.

You will be prompted to fill in the EIN number for your organization. This will create a search results list and you will select your organization from the list. You will complete the contact information section to create a user profile for yourself.

You will then receive an email with a link to activate your account and create your password. The initial staff contact is the first authorized representative to register and associate their profile account on behalf of an organization. This individual will also be responsible for providing accurate information in the organization profile and updating this information annually.

They will also receive email notifications from the platform. Additional organizational contacts can also register and access applications on behalf of an organization already in the system. These additional users will follow the same registration process as the initial organization contact.

The system will conduct a duplicate check and associate the user with the existing organization. After creating your password, you will have access to creating an organization profile and to viewing the current funding opportunities. On the top right hand corner you will see the initial of your first name that you registered under.

Please click there and a drop-down menu will open. Select “Organization Profile. ” You will be directed to a page with four separate tabs: General, Organization Information, Capacity Building, and Board Information.

You can save a draft of your organization profile at any time. Once your organization profile is complete, you must click “Profile Complete”. Please note that your organization profile but be completed in order to submit a grant application.

Application Submittal Procedures Applications will be accepted only through the online process via the Santa Barbara Foundation’s online platform at https://santabarbarafoundation. us-1. smartsimple.

com/s_Login. jsp . Paper applications will not be accepted.

To submit the completed and saved application, while on the “Submit” page, click the “I agree” box under Proposal Authorization. A “Submit” button will appear at the bottom of the page for you to click. If you attempt to submit the application with any errors you will receive a “validation” box listing the errors.

Once the errors have been corrected, you may resubmit the application. Please note, some questions have character counts (indicated beneath the question). While you will be able to continue entering text beyond these character counts, you will not be able to submit your application.

Please ensure you do not exceed the character count in order to successfully submit your application. You will receive an automatic email when your grant application has been received. Please retain this receipt for your files.

Virtual Office Hours, By Appointment September 23, 2025 – October 4, 2025 If you have questions about the suitability of your Child Care grant proposal prior to drafting your application, we encourage you to contact Beatriz Garcia, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships at bgarcia@sbfoundation. org. 1111 Chapala Street, Suite 200, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 (805) 963-1873 | info@sbfoundation.

org North County Headquarters Physical Address: 2625 South Miller Street, Suite 101, Santa Maria, CA 93455 Mailing: P. O. Box 2110 Santa Maria, CA 93455 &copy2026 Santa Barbara Foundation.