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Children's Investment Partnership (CIP)
The Connecticut Children’s Investment Partnership (CIP) is a program of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and its national child care arm. CIP provides financial resources and technical support to help the early care and education field develop new, quality facilities in lower-income communities throughout Connecticut. Since its creation six years ago, CIP has provided $1.2 million in grants and loans to support the development and improvement of 28 Connecticut child care facilities to house over 1,800 children. Another 25 potential projects have received CIP’s training and technical support.
With lead grant and loan support from the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, LISC created CIP six years ago. Since then CIP has attracted funding from a partnership of community foundations as well as state agencies. As a statewide child care facilities intermediary, it brings LISC’s national expertise and resources to Connecticut’s early childhood providers, and focuses its attention on center-based programs with a commitment to quality and to serving lower-income children and families. CIP offers a comprehensive package of resources and services, including:
--Intensive, one-on-one technical assistance from CIP staff and specialized consultants to help providers explore project feasibility; assess potential sites; identify funding opportunities and select skilled and reliable architects and contractors.
--Customized training programs and resource materials on all aspects of facility design and development. CIP’s upcoming workshop on Improving your Outdoor Play Area in Hartford on November 15, 2007 will help child care providers understand the elements of playground design and share strategies for renovating and improving existing outdoor playgrounds.
--Early planning grants and high-risk investment capital in the form of “recoverable” grants to supply providers with the resources to hire third-party technical consultants, architects and engineers to carry out a range of early feasibility and planning activities.
--Flexible, low-cost loans to bridge future funding sources or fill gaps in the project development budget
CIP’s work directly addresses two of the Discovery Initiative’s key objectives: to expand the supply of high quality early education, and to improve the quality of existing early education. CIP’s primary goal is to increase the supply and improve the quality of early care and education for low-income children throughout Connecticut. Our emphasis on quality facilities enables early education providers to greatly enhance program quality through a well-designed physical environment. CIP has collaborated with the Discovery Initiative on a statewide level since its inception, and has provided technical assistance and funding in over 30 of the Discovery Initiative communities. As Discovery Communities develop plans for facility expansion and improvement, and the state makes more capital resources available, CIP anticipates a growing role providing technical and financial support to these projects.
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