The Alliance for Early Success is a 50-state resource for early-childhood advocates as they pursue the big, sustained impact that will ensure every child in every state, birth through age eight, has an equal chance to grow, learn, and succeed.
For more than a decade, Sacred Pipe resource Center has been serving urban Indigenous families in North Dakota’s Bismarck-Mandan region. The organization runs six community councils, covering Native youth, housing, health, arts and culture, civic engagement, and economic development, on a budget built almost entirely on philanthropy.
The Alliance and NCFP have launched a Family Voice Capacity Building Mini-Grant, an opportunity for state advocates designed to help advocacy organizations strengthen their partnerships with families. The six-month $15,000 mini-grants provide flexible funding paired with customized responsive support.
Advocates in Denver, Colorado recently asked their peers if any states, cities, or counties have included child care educators who are paid through state or federal funds such as Head Start, child care subsidies, or local pre-K—in state or municipal employee health care pools. The Alliance Listserv community jumped in to share a variety of resource.
Our Native Communities Learning Project has explored Native histories, community systems, and meaningful collaboration. In this final interactive session, we move beyond theory and into application. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own work, learn from one another’s experiences, and identify practical strategies they can bring back to their organizations and communities.
Longtime early childhood policy leader Shannon Cotsoradis has joined the Alliance for Early Success Board of Directors. Cotsoradis is the Director of Policy and Strategy at the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, where she leads strategic initiatives to improve outcomes for young children and families through policy and systems change.
This webinar explored what it truly means to move beyond performative partnership and toward accountable relationship-building with Native Nations and communities. While many organizations and systems express a desire to support Native children and families, genuine collaboration requires shifting power, centering Tribal leadership, and rethinking how decisions are made within early childhood systems.
Explore cross-cultural communication, tribal protocol, and consensus-building strategies for respectful collaboration with Native Nations and communities.
FIELD NOTES | By Shannon Jones | Former Ohio state legislator and advocacy leader (and current Alliance Board Member) Shannon Jones encourages advocates to step back and think about their solution’s design before moving to persuasion. In policy environments of conservative-led states, it could be the key to advancing their cause.
Serv and Return highlights how Alliance allies responded to Ohio anti-vaccine legislation with coalition-building, health messaging, and narrative strategy.
This webinar focused on Native American communities and examined how power operates within early childhood systems—and within ourselves. Understanding the policy landscape and the historical harm experienced by Native American children, families, and communities was essential, but meaningful partnership also required examining bias, positionality, and the ways institutions continue to shape access, authority, and decision-making.
