Types of Grants for Nonprofits: Corporate, Foundation + More

Effectively securing institutional funding requires a strategic approach. By understanding the main types of grants for nonprofits that are available (and how these diverse revenue sources align with your overall development goals), your organization can establish a predictable roadmap for sustainable growth.

The following sections explore major funding opportunities for modern charities and educational institutions.

Corporate Grants — Foundation Grants — Government Grants — Federated Fund Grants — DAF Grants — Challenge Grants — In-Kind Grants

Plus, we’ll cover recommended tools for identifying your best prospects!

Corporate Grants

Corporate grants are financial contributions made by businesses to support programs that align with their values or philanthropic goals. Businesses typically distribute these funds through a dedicated corporate foundation or an internal CSR department. Unlike individual donations, corporate grants typically require a formal application process and come with strict reporting guidelines.

Fundraising leaders seeking corporate financial support will encounter several distinct funding styles. These include:

• Program support grants, which provide dedicated capital for a single community initiative, such as an after-school program or a local environmental cleanup campaign
• General operating grants, which deliver highly flexible, unrestricted funding that covers daily expenses such as technology upgrades, staff utilities, and building rent
• Capacity building grants, which help nonprofits improve their infrastructure by funding staff training, strategic planning, or database migrations.

Because different businesses prefer to give in different ways, understanding the standard frameworks used across the corporate landscape allows your development team to customize proposals for higher success rates.

For more information, check out our complete guide: How to Find Available Corporate Grants.

Employee Giving Programs

Many companies’ philanthropic initiatives are rapidly shifting away from traditional, top-down executive choices. Rather, employee giving programs are turning traditional corporate philanthropy on its head by putting individual staff in the driver’s seat of the distribution pipeline. Instead of relying on a board of directors to select a small number of funding recipients, these initiatives allow everyday employees to trigger financial awards for the causes they personally support.

For nonprofits and schools, this workforce-driven model creates a scalable, highly accessible revenue source that relies on building relationships with individual donors and volunteers.

The most common varieties of employee-giving grants are corporate matching gifts and volunteer grants. Matching gifts occur when a business matches a charitable cash donation made by an eligible employee, usually at a dollar-for-dollar ratio. Volunteer grants, often called “dollars for doers” programs, are corporate grants awarded to charities in recognition of an employee’s volunteer service hours. Both programs provide a seamless way for organizations to multiply their resources without requiring a traditional, highly competitive grant application.

Foundation Grants

Next, foundation grants represent a massive and reliable source of institutional funding that enables development teams to execute large-scale campaigns, fund academic research, and launch vital community services that individual giving alone cannot support.

These organizations are highly structured entities that evaluate funding proposals based on long-term community outcomes and financial compliance. Unlike commercial businesses, which generate revenue through commerce, foundations exist solely to distribute capital from private endowments or public collections. Yet, like corporate grants, there are a few overarching types to note:

• Community foundations aggregate charitable donations from local residents and families to fund long-term projects within a specific city, county, or state boundary.
• Independent foundations operate as distinct, self-governing entities that manage private endowments established by an individual benefactor but are run by an independent board of directors.
• Private foundations manage large capital endowments funded by a single corporate entity or individual, and are legally required to distribute a specific percentage of their assets annually to maintain their tax-exempt status.
• Family foundations allow the relatives of a wealthy donor to maintain active personal involvement in grantmaking decisions, creating a legacy of giving that targets specific philanthropic pillars across generations.

Navigating the application process for these diverse structures requires a significant administrative time investment. Most foundational reviews begin with a letter of inquiry, which is a concise document that introduces your goals and verifies mission alignment. If the foundation officers find that your program fits their focus areas, they will invite your staff to submit a full application detailing itemized project budgets, historical impact metrics, and audited financial statements.

Maintaining clear, verifiable compliance data is absolutely critical.

Government Grants

Government grants provide another vital public funding mechanism for nonprofits and educational institutions managing large-scale community programs. These public-sector awards are funded by taxpayer dollars and are designed to address widespread societal challenges.

• Federal grants offer the largest individual capital allocations but require organizations to complete highly complex compliance reporting guidelines through centralized public portals.
• State grants provide localized public funding that customizes national community priorities to fit the specific regional or socioeconomic needs of your local population.
• Local grants draw on municipal or county budgets to fund grassroots neighborhood programs such as public parks, community libraries, and emergency food pantries.

While public funding offers substantial capital allocations, it also requires the highest levels of administrative compliance, detailed project tracking, and strict financial auditing. However, it’s important to note that government grants generally operate on a reimbursement model rather than providing upfront cash disbursements. This means that a nonprofit must maintain strong internal capital reserves to execute the program and cover initial costs before any public funds are released.

Federated Fund Grants

Federated fund grants provide an invaluable source of revenue for fundraising organizations across the country. These awards are distributed by centralized community consolidators (e.g., United Way or Combined Federal Campaign) that partner with corporations, utility providers, and government agencies to manage large-scale giving. They essentially run annual workplace campaigns to collect small deductions from thousands of employees’ paychecks and distribute the aggregated funds to vetted member charities.

Securing a place within these networks allows your development team to access a massive pool of consistent, recurring revenue that individual outreach campaigns rarely reach.

However, more and more companies are implementing their own employee giving programs, which means this type of grant may eventually become obsolete.

Donor-Advised Fund Grants

Donor-advised fund grants are among the fastest-growing sources of philanthropic revenue for modern nonprofits. A donor-advised fund (or DAF) is a specialized charitable vehicle administered by a financial services provider that allows individual philanthropists to make tax-effective contributions. After depositing capital, the individual retains advisory privileges to recommend grant distributions from the account to their favorite 501(c)(3) charities over an extended period.

Because these accounts hold billions of dollars in pre-committed charitable capital, securing such distributions provides your development team with highly reliable, large-scale financial support. To capture these distributions effectively, fundraising leaders must ensure their digital donation workflows are optimized for asset-based giving vehicles.

Challenge Grants

Challenge grants are a dynamic fundraising model in which a funding partner pledges to donate a specific amount only after the nonprofit raises a target amount from other community supporters. Unlike corporate matching gifts, which trigger employer payouts based on team members’ individual gifts, challenge grants are typically contingent on a specific goal or timeline. The donor establishes an objective requiring the organization to meet a predefined milestone, such as a dollar threshold or a total donor count, within a strict time window to unlock additional capital. This conditional structure creates an immediate sense of momentum that development teams can leverage to significantly increase engagement.

A common misconception among fundraising professionals is that challenge grants are exclusively awarded by enterprise-level foundations or public agencies. In reality, these campaigns can be funded by a wide variety of philanthropic sources, including major corporations, local community trusts, or even single high-net-worth donors.

In-Kind Grants

In-kind grants can be defined as the formal distribution of non-monetary donations, including tangible goods, software licenses, facilities or real estate, or professional services, eliminating major operational expenses. Businesses and corporate foundations often leverage this style of philanthropy to distribute high-value assets and resources within their inventory or offer specialized staff expertise.

Here are a few examples:

• Physical product donations – tangible items such as office electronics, classroom technology, emergency food supplies, or clothing kits
• Software access – free or heavily discounted digital tools for database management, graphic design, website security, and productivity
• Pro bono professional services – legal counsel, bookkeeping assistance, IT support, or digital marketing audits
• Corporate facility sharing – access to executive meeting rooms, community training centers, or local storage spaces

Every item received through these programs must be recorded accurately at its verified fair market value to ensure institutional tax compliance and transparent financial reporting. Maintaining pristine records ensures your board passes public reviews while building trust with institutional compliance managers. Not to mention, thoughtful accounting stewardship lays a strong foundation for converting a one-time in-kind grant into a long-term corporate partnership.

Bonus: Tools for Uncovering Grant Opportunities

Finding the right grants to apply for can be one of the most challenging parts of the fundraising process. Luckily, specialized grant-tracking software allows your team to save valuable administrative time, maintain clean internal records, and target prospects who naturally align with your programs. Here are a few tools to consider:

• Double the Donation provides an extensive corporate giving database that automatically uncovers corporate grants, employee matching gifts, volunteer incentives, and in-kind donation initiatives.
• Grants.gov serves as the centralized public portal for discovering federal government awards and provides comprehensive compliance-tracking tools for large-scale public-sector allocations.
• Instrumentl operates as a smart grant-seeking platform for private foundation funding, combining prospect research, metric tracking, and deadline management within a single software dashboard.
• Charity Navigator helps fundraising leaders evaluate the financial health and accountability markers of public trusts while offering insight into the philanthropic giving trends of major institutional donors.

By incorporating these technology solutions into your operations, your staff can build a highly sophisticated grant pipeline that targets the right revenue streams for your needs. Doing so will help your development board make highly informed, data-driven decisions that increase your grant acquisition success rates year after year.

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Wrapping Up & Additional Resources

The true key to long-term success lies in removing the administrative barriers that prevent your staff from identifying these lucrative funding streams. Implementing grant-seeking tools like Double the Donation allows your team to automate donor eligibility checks and streamline matching grant workflows effortlessly.

When you leverage advanced technology to manage these programs, you can maximize your annual grant revenue while keeping your focus on your vital community mission.