Washington Early Learning Loan Fund (WELL)

The WELL program objective is to increase early learning slots statewide and especially slots to support low income families by leveraging limited Department of Commerce and Foundation funding with WCRA economic development or housing loans.

Washington State is short thousands of early learning centers and we must effectively create new child care and preschool centers at scale to meet our families’ needs. WCRA, Enterprise and Craft3 have joined together to pool efforts and funds to address the problem. With funding from the State of Washington, the Ballmer Group, the Seattle Foundation, and private sources, the fund prioritizes: centers that add Working Connections childcare and/or ECEAP slots to serve low income families, centers in low-income neighborhoods and areas of unmet need, and in mixed-use developments in both rural and urban locations.