Grant Opportunities

ITN 2026-XX: Thrive by 5 QIS Evaluation Services

Pending board approval on March 16, 2026, The Children’s Trust will release a competitive solicitation for foundational data infrastructure, program evaluation, and advanced analytics to externally evaluate the impact of the Thrive by 5 early childhood quality improvement system (QIS) in Miami-Dade County. Thrive by 5 QIS is one of The Trust’s largest investments at $47.5 million annually, with 361 licensed early child care sites and more than 2,500 teachers, serving up to 32,376 young children. It has been recognized nationally as an innovative, multifaceted strategy to improve the quality of early learning for young children. It is a well-developed integrated system of supports at the child care provider, teacher, and child levels, that has a high readiness for program evaluation and complex data modeling and analyses that can tell us more about what combination of components contribute meaningfully to different outcomes.

One or more vendors will be selected to collaborate directly with The Children’s Trust technology and research staff to build a foundational and sustainable QIS data infrastructure within The Trust’s environment to support external evaluation analyses (e.g., MLM ready extracts, reproducible cohorts, and analytic files), as well as operational continuous quality improvement dashboards and monitoring tools (e.g., tracking participation, dosage, implementation indicators, and leading outcome measures). The data preparation and infrastructure phase will include data from multiple system sources, collected across multiple timepoints across a five-year period. Child data are nested in classrooms, which are nested in programs; nested cases will need to be matched across all levels. Ideal vendors will have both technical data modeling and early learning programming/data expertise. Following the foundational data infrastructure phase, vendor(s) will conduct a rigorous program evaluation and evidence generation that analyzes the impact of Thrive by 5 QIS components on the sites, educators, and families within our community. See more about the QIS at https://www.thechildrenstrust.org/about-us/what-we-fund/thrive-by-5/.

Thrive by 5 QIS Tentative Timeline (To be posted soon)

RFP 2026-XX: Early Childhood Services Integrated Data System

Pending board approval on March 16, 2026, The Children’s Trust will release a competitive solicitation for community research, including data collection, management, and analysis services, to manage an integrated data system that collects, links, and analyzes early childhood data across a spectrum of systems data contributors. The selected vendor will coordinate with multiple Miami-Dade County early childhood service systems partners to understand the landscape of early childhood services for children and families in the community. This involves maintaining legal data sharing agreements and governance administration; collecting primary population data related to early childhood development and neighborhood vulnerability and resilience; hosting, linking, and analyzing data from across systems; and overall project management.   

Early Childhood Services Integrated Data System Tentative Timeline (To be posted soon)

RFP 2026- XX HealthConnect in Our Schools Research and Evaluation Services

The Children’s Trust will release a competitive solicitation for external evaluation services to guide the comprehensive school-based health initiative. HealthConnect in Our Schools currently invests $26 million/year to serve nearly 300 Miami-Dade County schools attended by more than 200,000 students, providing essential nursing, mental health, and social work services. The initiative plays a critical role in supporting student well-being, access to care, and school engagement. Selected vendor(s) will partner closely with The Trust to operationalize key evaluation questions and to collect and analyze mixed methods data to inform the initiative’s implementation, ongoing quality improvement, and overall impact. The proposed evaluation plan is intended to support rigorous analysis, actionable learning, and timely reporting to inform The Trust’s annual planning, school tiering decisions, and program improvements. Applicants may propose to offer one, some, or all of the evaluation plan activities. 

HealthConnect in Our Schools Research & Evaluation Service Timeline: 

• Release Date: April 2, 2026 
• Bidders' Conference and Application Training: April 3, 2026  
• Pre-Application Deadline: April 30, 2026 
• Deadline to Submit Questions: May 1, 2026 by 5PM
• Application Deadline: May 7, 2026 by 5PM
• Review Period: May 8-12, 2026
• Debriefing Period: May 13-15, 2026
• Site Visit/Interview Period: May 18, 2026
• Selection Announcement: May 20, 2026
• Appeal Deadline: May 22, 2026 by 5PM
• Recommendations to Committee: June 2, 2026
• Recommendations to Board of Directors: June 15, 2026
• Contract Start Date: July 1, 2026 

ITN 2026-01 Innovation Fund

This solicitation will fund multiple entities, for up to $1,000,000, for innovative ideas and program designs that address existing community needs and have not previously been implemented in our community. Proposals should demonstrate the potential through research, education or program innovation to improve: a) Conditions in which children, families or communities live, work, play or learn, and/or b) Provision and/or coordination of services for children, families or communities. All proposed projects should demonstrate how they will benefit families with children within Miami-Dade County. Individual awards will not exceed $100,000.

Innovation Fund Tentative Timeline

• Release Date: January 27, 2026
• Bidder's Conference and Application Training: January 29, 2026
  • 9:00am-11:00am; REGISTER HERE
  • Bidder's Conference PowerPoint Presentation HERE
  • Bidder's Conference Video Recording HERE
• Pre-Application Deadline: February 27, 2026
• Application Deadline: March 13, 2026
• Debriefing Period: March 30 – April 2, 2026
• Site Visit/Interview Period: April 16, 2026 – April 20, 2026
• Selection Announcement: April 24, 2026

ITN 2026- XX Economic Impact Evaluation

Pending board approval on March 16, 2026, The Children’s Trust will release a competitive solicitation for economic research and evaluation services to explore the overall economic impact or benefit of having a publicly funded local government organization like The Children’s Trust focused on improving the lives of children and families in Miami-Dade County. As The Trust approaches its 25-year anniversary, this effort represents a strategic opportunity to more explicitly examine and articulate the economic value The Trust brings to the community. The selected vendor will function as a thought partner with Trust staff, proposing and carrying out economic analysis and modeling to estimate The Trust’s broader economic contributions. This work will include assessing direct, indirect, induced, and social impact associated with The Trust’s investments. This may involve collection of primary data and use of secondary data. Findings will inform strategic communications, policy discussions, and future planning, helping to clearly convey The Trust’s sustained impact across Miami-Dade County. 

Economic Impact Evaluation Tentative Timeline: 

• Release Date: April 2, 2026 
• Bidders' Conference and Application Training: April 3, 2026  
• Pre-Application Deadline: April 30, 2026 
• Deadline to Submit Questions: May 1, 2026 by 5PM
• Application Deadline: May 7, 2026 by 5PM
• Review Period: May 8-12, 2026
• Debriefing Period: May 13-15, 2026
• Site Visit/Interview Period: May 18, 2026
• Selection Announcement: May 20, 2026
• Appeal Deadline: May 22, 2026 by 5PM
• Recommendations to Committee: June 2, 2026
• Recommendations to Board of Directors: June 15, 2026
• Contract Start Date: July 1, 2026 

RFP 2026-02: The Children's Trust Youth Advisory Committee® Program (YAC)

The Children's Trust is seeking proposals for a single organization to operate The Children’s Trust Youth Advisory Committee (YAC), a leadership development program for high school age youth with a focus on service and civic engagement, especially relating to children and families in Miami-Dade County. The YAC serves as the youth voice of The Children’s Trust. The proposal should include student recruitment, staff engagement and retention, budgeting and purchasing, monthly meetings across Miami-Dade, activities, student-driven social media, and local and out-of-town field trip planning and execution, student-led community service project development and execution, and other program needs, while ensuring the program maintains The Children’s Trust YAC brand and identity. All proposals should also demonstrate experience with positive development of high school age youth. 

Youth Advisory Committee Tentative Timeline

• Release Date: February 25, 2026
• Bidder's Conference and Application Training: February 26, 2026
  • 1:00pm-3:00pm; REGISTER HERE.
  • Bidder's Conference PowerPoint Presentation HERE
  • Bidder's Conference Video Recording HERE
• Pre-Application Deadline: March 18, 2026
• Application Deadline: April 1, 2026
• Debriefing Period: April 22, 2026
• Site Visit/Interview Period: May 7, 2026
• Selection Announcement: May 12, 2026

Community Engagement and Outreach grants provide community partners with an opportunity to seek funding for existing programs, advocacy efforts or events that support children and families in Miami-Dade County as well as the mission and values of The Children's Trust.