Partner Up! Grant Program
Helping businesses secure affordable child care slots for their employees
Partner Up! applications are now closed.
The Partner Up! grant program will provide $10 million in funding to support child care for Wisconsin’s businesses.
Through Partner Up!, businesses can reserve subsidized slots in regulated local child care programs for their employees’ use. The employer will contribute part of the true cost of care for each slot reserved, and Partner Up! will contribute the remaining amount. Participating families will receive accessible, high-quality child care at little-to-no out-of-pocket cost to them.
Detailed information, including costs and eligibility, can be found on DCF’s Partner Up! webpage.
[maxbutton id=”16″ text=”Go to the Partner Up! website” url=”https://dcf.wisconsin.gov/childcare/projectgrowth/partner-up”]
Your local CCR&R will be happy to answer any questions about Partner Up! Find your local CCR&R here.
Watch our informational webinar
Learn more about how Partner Up! works for businesses, child care providers, and families, the application process, and the true costs of care in this webinar recorded on March 10, 2022.
Watch in Spanish:
Flyers & Information Sheets
Share these materials to help businesses, child care providers, and families learn about the opportunity and benefits of Partner Up!
Benefitting your business
Information for business owners/managers
- Employer-sponsored child care is a powerful retention and hiring benefit for your business that helps you stay competitive in a tight labor market.
- Increase your applicant pool to include parents who want to work but don’t have child care.
- 83% of millennials say they would leave their job for one with more family-friendly benefits.
- Employee reliability and productivity increase when parents have consistent child care and have peace of mind their children are in a high-quality environment.
- Potential long-term cost savings and quality improvement to your business by retaining employees.
Benefitting child care providers
Information for child care providers
- Slots reserved through Partner Up! can help stabilize your enrollment numbers.
- Offering staff higher pay with funds received through Partner Up! can help your program recruit and retain quality staff.
- Your child care program can use funds from Partner Up! for staff compensation, purchasing quality child materials, professional development, and many other activities to benefit your program.
- Child care program can also apply as businesses to reserve subsidized slots for staff.
- Partnering with local businesses strengthens your community and your program’s local involvement and name recognition.
Benefitting your family
- Participating families will receive child care at little-to-no cost to them. Only if a provider’s rates are higher than the Partner Up! payment amounts will the family be responsible for paying the difference out-of-pocket.
- Having reliable child care from a regulated program means you can focus at work knowing your children are safe and in a high-quality environment.
- It’s likely you can remain with your current child care provider as long as their program is regulated and in good standing with WI DCF, and they agree to participate in Partner Up!
- If you don’t have a child care provider already, Partner Up! will match your business with local regulated child care providers with open slots so you don’t have to search for child care.
Partner Up! is a new grant program from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families’ Project Growth, Supporting Families Together Association, and Wisconsin’s nine CCR&Rs.
