We fund leaders who have firsthand knowledge of the communities where they seek to drive impact, whether because they are actually a part of that community, work with the community, and/or they are meaningfully guided by that group’s inputs, ideas, agendas, and assets and then use that knowledge to develop solutions. (The community may be defined by a specific location, identity, or experience.) In Promise’s context, this is specifically in order to address the key barriers to equitable outcomes for children ages 0 - 5, caregivers, and their families.

We invest in these leaders because we believe they have the greatest potential to transform the early childhood field, but face the greatest obstacles, especially at the earliest stages of social entrepreneurship. 

Review our selection criteria with an overview of what we look for in applicants here.

No. The Imagine Award only supports leaders ready to pilot equity-centered ideas that improve the lives of young children and their families and caregivers in the United States.

To be eligible for the Imagine Award:

• You must be based/residing in the United States primarily serving children and families in the United States

• Your proposed project must be implemented within the United States

The Promise Fund was developed in acknowledgement that flexible funding isn’t as common as it should be for early stage entrepreneurs. We invest in leaders we believe in, and we trust their judgement around the use of their funds. Our reporting requirements are designed to be simple, impact-focused, and not overly detailed on spending. If you have questions, please contact us to discuss.

For tax and compliance reasons related to the structure of these awards, any for-profit award winners without 501(c)(3) status must use the funding for charitable purposes, according to IRS definitions. One of the practical implications of this requirement is that the funding may not be spent on buying or developing assets or developing technology.

This award is intended for leaders with clearly defined ideas that they are ready to test and refine.

Leaders may have done some light work to validate their ideas, potentially including input-gathering with the community, but they have not yet fully developed their offerings or undertaken substantial pilots. We are looking to support leaders who have raised or earned less than $100k with their proposed ideas. (Most will have raised or earned $0.)

Review our selection criteria to learn more here.

We expect awardees to dedicate about 4-6 hours per week to working on their idea (designing their pilot, or testing with their community) and to participating in programming like workshops and peer spaces. You can learn more about the program offerings in the informational video.

In 2026, we expect to select up to 10 recipients of the Imagine Award, which consists of $20,000 in funding alongside capacity-building programming.

We see trust, choice, and clear program milestones not as competing ideas but as complementary forces that help leaders achieve their goals. In the pilot year, we learned that many leaders express their aspirations and needs through a fundraising lens: the need to raise more funds to continue working towards their idea. Our role is to translate those aspirations into the necessary capacities that enable them to create evidence and generate funding or revenue that aligns with that potential.

That means our milestones both honor a leader's vision and make visible the conditions funders look for: clarity of impact, a viable business model, and a capable team. Setting milestones together, with flexibility for each founder's context and goals, allows us to respect a leader's agency and wisdom while providing the structure and resources that can turn their ideas into fundable, sustainable ventures.

In short, trust means believing leaders know where they want to go; our milestone framework makes explicit the capabilities: validation, impact and business model thinking, and that helps them build evidence and attract the resources they need.

Promise has stewarded two main communities: the Early Childhood Leaders of Color Collaborative (EC LOC), a space where we unite BIPOC and proximate innovators to drive personal sustainability, social capital, and collective power, and the Promise Venture Network (PVN), a community for leaders interested in their ventures’ growth and impact. Promise also has a history of connecting ventures to sources of capital, customers and potential partners in order to facilitate the field’s most equitable marketplace of capital to ventures. Award recipients will be able to tap into the power of our diverse networks and our connections in order to drive their progress forward!

In our pilot year, we selected four recipients for the Imagine Award (previously referred to as the Promise Sandbox Award) from across the country.

The 2025 award recipients had compelling ideas for transformational impact and were proximate to their communities, in keeping with our commitment to empowering those with firsthand understanding of the aspirations, challenges, and capacities of children, parents, and families within their communities. Our inaugural cohort of award recipients also brought strong equity focus and entrepreneurial mindsets.

The Promise Sandbox Award has been renamed the Imagine Award as part of a rebrand. This isn't a completely new award — the core purpose remains the same — but we've updated and added to certain elements of the program based on feedback and lessons learned during our pilot year. Any future references to this award will use the new name, the Imagine Award.

The support we provide award recipients is borne from the needs they articulate; we are partners, not gatekeepers, not supervisors.

Our award recipients set their impact targets and the metrics that contribute to the measurement of our own impact. To the extent it is beneficial, we help award recipients establish clear learning goals and design pilots and strategies to explore those goals. Award recipients will help co-create and shape their program experience by identifying the workshops, resources, and relationships most relevant to their goals.

Beyond offering direct funding, Promise Venture Studio is engaging in a field-building effort to elevate the powerful ideas, ventures, and leaders shaping the future of early childhood development. Our goals include illustrating the urgent need for more early-stage funding and making a compelling case to other funders for deeper investment in proximate social entrepreneurship in early childhood development.

The applications submitted for the Imagine Award are a key part of this effort. We may draw on the information applicants share to (in aggregate):

• Demonstrate the breadth and potential of innovation in this space,

• Highlight stories that help funders understand the real-world impact of early investment, and

• Inspire greater support for this fund and the leaders, organizations, and ventures it backs.

By submitting applications, leaders agree to allow us to learn from and potentially lift up the story of their work. That said:

• We will never share identifying or organizational details publicly without explicit permission from the applicant.

• We will never share original ideas publicly without explicit permission from the applicant.

• If we’d like to feature an idea or venture in any public-facing materials or fundraising efforts, we’ll contact the applicant first to confirm their consent and collaborate on how the story is shared.

• If at any point an applicant would like to opt-out of these storytelling efforts, they can contact us at fund@promisestudio.org.

We are committed to approaching this work with care, consent, and transparency—because storytelling should never come at the expense of the storyteller.

The Promise Fund is a catalytic, philanthropic impact fund by Promise Venture Studio that supports leaders and organizations reimagining early childhood through community-rooted innovation. We provide capital and support at the earliest stages through two awards: the Imagine Award and the Build Award. Learn more here.