Advancing Innovation

Rural Church

The Duke Endowment's Child Care investments primarily support projects that use high-achieving approaches. When successful models are lacking, we pursue investment to advance innovation.

We define "advancing innovation" as developing and testing new approaches to outperform existing practices. The critical factor is improving performance.

We support two approaches to innovation:

• Pilots an innovation for the first time. In these cases, we prefer to test new approaches on a small scale to study key assumptions without major cost. These projects may function as beta tests for larger projects to follow.
• Builds on some measure of an existing program's demonstrated success.

Eligibility examples
Applications in this category must focus on programs that test innovative approaches striving to outperform existing models. Requests may include programs or services that are not yet evidence-based.

These grants will be expected to undergo rigorous evaluation that may include a small study (pilot) to test new approaches or build on existing programs or models in which promising evidence exists.

Downloads

Application Documents -- to be submitted

• Application: Explain how your project will advance innovation.
• Budget Form: Itemize your revenue sources and related expenses for the project
• Submit a brief cover letter with the Pastor's signature-acknowledges that the information included in the application is complete and accurate.

Application Resources -- for reference

• User Guide: Understand Endowment objectives and effectively frame your application.
• Sample Application and Budget: Structure your application and budget information using this example, which is mirrored in the user guide.
• Grantmaking strategy overview: Learn about The Duke Endowments funding strategies.

Reporting Documents for Active Grants -- to be submitted

• Annual Reports:
• Report Form: Report on annual results, challenges and anticipated outcomes.
• Budget Form: Report on annual revenue and related expenses.
• Final Reports:
• Report Form: Report on project results, challenges and lessons learned.
• Budget Form: Report on final revenue and related expenses.