Initiatives & Special Projects
As circumstances in the early childhood sector change, we respond by creating initiatives and special projects with the potential to demonstrate broad impact on current, relevant issues.

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Local Financing for Early Childhood Education
The Buell Foundation recognizes that additional, ongoing funding is necessary to support the needs of children, families, and caregivers. As part of this strategy, we are interested in supporting local efforts to bring new, public revenue into the system. In early 2024, the Buell Foundation has released Supporting Families, Children, and the Caregiving Workforce: A Local […]
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Early Childhood Councils
The Buell Foundation seeks to support the sustainability of Colorado’s Early Childhood Councils—a network of local, community-driven entities that disseminate programming and best practices throughout the state as well as to gather diverse perspectives from Colorado’s many regions. Through the councils, the Buell Foundation supports efforts to improve the access, quality, and equity of the […]
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Transforming the Early Childhood Workforce (closed)
This multiyear initiative was a partnership between the Buell Foundation and the Piton Foundation at Gary Community Investment that explored potential solutions for the early childhood workforce challenges that exist in Colorado. Through funding innovative projects, this initiative provided the capital needed to develop and test ideas with the potential to improve recruitment, retention, and/or compensation […]
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Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program & Network
Launched in 2007, the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program (BECLP) had the vision of improving the early childhood care and education systems in Colorado by identifying, nurturing, and building leadership capacity in existing and future early childhood leaders. Fourteen cohorts successfully completed the program, and 250 alumni have been deployed as changemakers in Colorado. The […]
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Support During COVID-19 (closed)
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the child care industry, resulting in permanent closures of many of the child care centers in Colorado. The Buell Foundation responded quickly during the first days of the shutdown by providing unsolicited grants to all of our child care partners, and then again when centers needed to reopen under […]
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LAUNCH Together (closed)
In 2015, a unique partnership consisting of eight Colorado Foundations, Early Milestones Colorado, and the Butler Insitute, came together to improve early childhood mental health systems in the state. Built on the federal Project LAUNCH framework (a national effort of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), LAUNCH Together was an initiative designed to […]
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We have three grant cycles per year: deadlines are in mid-January and the first business day of May and September.


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