Major milestones strengthen efforts to advance early learning and enhance foundation’s reputation as a leader in the early childhood movement

The Clayton Foundation, for decades a leading resource in early childhood education, today unveiled plans to significantly expand the capacity of its programming, its campus facilities and its leadership team.
The foundation announced major construction projects that include a new state-of-the-art early learning center for children from birth to five years of age and the renovation of historic buildings on its 20-acre northeast Denver campus that will house Clayton’s teacher training programs. The foundation also announced that it has been selected to join the Bounce Learning Network, a prestigious national network of early learning organizations, enabling it to collaborate with other high-quality early learning facilities to share best practices and contribute to dramatically improving early childhood education across the state and the country.
At a ceremony on the foundation’s campus, Clayton Foundation board members, community leaders, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Clayton children and teachers broke ground on the construction projects. They also welcomed new President and CEO Charlotte Brantley, who will take the helm of the nearly 100-year old organization as it mobilizes to become an even more significant force in early learning. Brantley’s distinguished career spans decades of leadership in early childhood education, with emphasis on teacher training, high-quality early learning environments, child and family policy and state and federal program administration.
Chambers Family Fund contributed the first $2 million for The Clayton Foundation to build a new Educare early learning center and join the national Bounce Learning Network. The Bounce Learning Network, created by the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and the Ounce of Prevention Fund, matched Chamber Family Fund’s gift with a grant of $1 million. Other Colorado foundations made significant contributions to build the new early learning center. As a member of the Bounce Learning Network, The Clayton Foundation will not only create an Educare Center on the Clayton campus, but will participate in a national network of organizations that will serve as a laboratory for demonstrating the nation’s best early childhood education practices as well as a platform to advocate for long-term change in how resources for low-income children are invested across the country.
"It's a privilege for Chambers Family Fund to partner with The Clayton Foundation and to support this innovative project," said Merle Chambers, founder and president of Chambers Family Fund. "The creation of an Educare Center enables Clayton to participate in a national project demonstrating that quality early education matters and ensures that young children in northeast Denver have the best possible early childhood education."
“The Clayton Foundation is a key leader in early childhood education in our community and in the state that connects programs, partners and place,” said Brantley. “The building projects coupled with the Bounce Learning Network and our ongoing local and statewide partnerships will further solidify the link between teacher instruction and children’s learning already demonstrated by our programs.” This model enables early learning professionals to put their training into practice, supported by top-level programming curriculum developed in conjunction with the Bounce Learning Network and the federal Head Start program. “Our teachers in training will be able to bring classroom instruction alive on the same campus, ultimately narrowing the gap between ‘what we know’ from the research and ‘what we do’ in the classroom for the benefit of our children,” said Brantley.
The Boettcher Foundation granted $2.8 million to support the teacher training institute, including $800,000 to fund operating expenses, noteworthy in that the foundation has historically not provided operating support. “This is one of the largest grants we’ve made in the history of the Boettcher Foundation,” said Boettcher Foundation President and Executive Director Tim Schultz. “We saw this as an opportunity to make a significant impact and fundamentally change the way we prepare our children for success,” said Schultz.
The Clayton Foundation is seeking additional contributions to fully fund the campus master plans for the teacher training institute facilities. The combination of the new early learning center and the teacher training institute will significantly boost the Colorado infrastructure needed to create a competent early childhood workforce.
“The Clayton Foundation shares our mission of taking the nation’s best early childhood research from the lab to the street,” said Dan Pedersen, president, Buffett Early Childhood Fund. “We are proud to welcome Denver into our network as we share best practices and collaborate to improve quality and ultimately produce a dramatically new standard of effectiveness for early learning.” With the creation of an Educare Center at The Clayton Foundation, Denver becomes the seventh site in the country to join the Bounce Learning Network, which has plans to grow to include 12 to15 Educare Centers in 10 to12 states.
“The achievements of The Clayton Foundation and its vision for the future pave the way for our children’s success and elevate our community’s reputation as a leader in early childhood education to a national level,” said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. “Colorado teachers say that a third of our children come to kindergarten unprepared to learn and once they fall behind, they stay behind. And with 80 percent of brain development happening before the age of five, the work of The Clayton Foundation is pivotal in creating opportunities for our children to learn, grow and succeed.”
For more than 100 years, The Clayton Foundation has served Denver’s low-income children, focusing exclusively on early childhood education since 1985. Two core programs serve more than 1,500 children and more than 500 early childcare education professionals each year. The Family Futures program harnesses federal Head Start and Early Head Start funds to provide direct services to pregnant women and families with infants, toddlers and preschoolers in northeast Denver. Family Futures children enter elementary school prepared for success. The Early Childhood Resource Institute partners with Colorado’s higher education community to coach and train hundreds of ECE teachers and administrators. It fosters research, incubates new ideas and actively shares lessons learned with early childhood professionals across the state.