How to Find Local & Community Foundation Grants

For most nonprofits, the most winnable grant money is close to home. Local funders fund local work by design, they are reachable in a way national foundations are not, and they are more open to small and new organizations. If you are early in grant seeking, local is where to start.

Start with your community foundation

Almost every region in the United States has a community foundation — an organization that pools donations from local givers and grants the money back into the area. It is built to fund local nonprofits, it usually accepts applications, and getting to know it is one of the highest-value relationships a local nonprofit can build. Find yours and make contact.

Find the local family foundations

Many small family foundations give only within their home city or county and never advertise. They surface in IRS 990-PF data: search for foundations whose grant recipients are clustered in your area. A foundation that funded ten organizations in your county last year is, by definition, a local funder — even if you have never heard of it.

Don't overlook corporate giving

Companies with a presence in your area — banks, utilities, hospitals, large employers — often run local giving programs or corporate foundations. They tend to favor the communities where they operate and where their employees live. Local corporate giving is frequently overlooked simply because it is less visible.

Use geography as your filter

The practical skill in finding local grants is filtering the funder universe by geography: which funders actually give where you operate. Bespoke Grants does this directly — its city and state pages list the foundations based in or giving to a given place, so 'who funds nonprofits near me' becomes a quick lookup rather than a research project.

Local credibility compounds

Local grants do more than fund the work. A track record with respected local funders is credibility you can carry to regional and national foundations later. Funders talk, and a community foundation's support is a signal other funders read. Start local not only because it is winnable, but because it opens the next door.