Where To find Grants for Children & Youth Services

Let’s talk about funding for children and youth services.

On paper, this is one sector.

In practice, it can mean a mentorship program matching teenagers with caring adults, a summer camp trying to keep fees affordable, a youth council giving young people a voice in their community, a child welfare organization supporting families in crisis, or a recreation program trying to make sure every child can participate regardless of what their parents can afford.

That is a lot of very different work sitting underneath one heading.

So what does that mean when you are looking for grants?

It means “children and youth” is a very good place to start, but it is probably not where your foundation research should end.

The strongest funding opportunities usually become clearer when you get much more specific about the young people you serve, the program you run, the problem you are trying to solve and what you actually need the money for.

If you are already researching foundations, Grant Advance can help you find funders whose giving history aligns with your programs rather than relying only on a broad “children and youth” funding category.

What can children and youth grants pay for?

Quite a lot. Youth programs have plenty of very ordinary expenses that have to be paid before anything wonderful happens. There are staff salaries. Background checks. Buses. Program supplies. Food. Sports equipment. Facility rentals. Insurance. Technology. Training. Camp scholarships. Counsellors. Accessibility supports. Sometimes there is a building that desperately needs repairs. Sometimes there is a waiting list you could cut in half if you could simply afford another staff member. Sometimes there are families who need the program but cannot possibly pay the fee.

This is where grants for children and youth programs can make a real difference.

Depending on the foundation and its guidelines, funding may be available for:

Program Area	What Funding May Support
Youth mentorship	Mentor recruitment, screening, training, staff, transportation, activities and program expansion
Summer camps	Camp scholarships, counsellors, food, transportation, equipment, facilities and accessibility
Youth leadership	Youth councils, leadership training, youth-led projects, stipends, civic engagement and volunteering
Child welfare	Family support, foster youth services, case management, mental health, housing and transition programs
Recreation	Sports equipment, coaches, facilities, transportation, program fees and inclusive recreation
After-school programs	Staffing, academic support, meals, activities, supplies and transportation
Youth employment	Job-readiness training, mentorship, certifications, work placements and career development

Of course, one foundation may happily fund program staff while another will not touch salaries.

One may support capital improvements. Another may only fund direct programming. Another may offer general operating support.

This is why knowing what you need before you start searching is so important.

Youth mentorship sounds simple until you actually have to run it

Mentorship is a good example. From the outside, it can sound fairly straightforward. Find a caring adult. Match them with a young person. Off you go.

Anyone operating a real mentorship program knows there is much more to it than that.

Who recruits the mentors?

Who screens them?

Who handles the background checks?

Who trains them?

Who decides which mentor should be matched with which young person?

What happens when a match is not working?

Who supports the mentor?

Who checks in with the young person?

How are you measuring whether any of this is helping?

Youth.gov describes mentoring as a relationship in which a caring mentor provides support, guidance and opportunities that can help a young person work toward their goals.

So when you are looking for youth mentorship grants, do not describe the program only in terms of the number of matches you make.

What are those relationships helping young people do?

Are they staying engaged in school?

Developing confidence?

Preparing for employment?

Building social skills?

Learning to advocate for themselves?

Connecting with somebody who consistently shows up?

Those are much more meaningful things to talk about with a funder.

Camps are wonderful. They also cost a fortune to run.

youth and children nonprofit group having fun

People tend to picture the fun part of camp. Canoes. Crafts. Swimming. Campfires. Children coming home filthy and exhausted.

What they do not see is everything that had to be paid for before the first child even arrived.

Staff.

Training.

Insurance.

Food.

Transportation.

Facilities.

Equipment.

First aid.

Accessibility.

And if your organization wants camp to remain available to families who cannot afford the full fee, somebody has to cover those spaces too.

So when you are researching summer camp grants or grants for youth camps, think about what your camp does.

Is it primarily recreation?

Outdoor education?

Leadership development?

A camp for children with disabilities?

A bereavement camp?

A camp for children affected by illness?

A STEM camp?

A camp specifically serving low-income families?

All of those descriptions may lead you toward different foundations.

The program has not changed.

Your understanding of the funding landscape has.

Youth leadership should involve youth

Youth leadership is another one of those phrases we use rather freely.

What does it mean in your program?

Are young people sitting on an advisory council?

Planning community events?

Managing a project budget?

Mentoring younger children?

Speaking with decision-makers?

Volunteering?

Developing campaigns?

Making decisions about programs designed for them?

Youth.gov’s Positive Youth Development framework encourages organizations to treat young people as active participants and partners, giving them opportunities to participate, contribute and lead.

So if you are applying for a youth leadership grant, tell the foundation what the young people are actually going to do.

There is a big difference between:

We empower young people to become leaders.

and:

Forty young people will identify community issues, develop and deliver their own projects, manage small project budgets and present their recommendations to local leaders.

Now we know what “leadership” looks like.

And so does the funder.

Please don’t undersell recreation

Recreation can sometimes be treated as though it is simply the fun part of youth services. Fun is important. But that is certainly not the whole story. A recreation program can give a child somewhere safe to go after school. It can introduce them to caring adults. It can help them make friends. It can give them something to work toward. It may be the first place they feel they belong.

And yes, it gets them moving.

A nonprofit looking for youth recreation grants may need funding for:

Sports equipment
Coaches
Program staff
Gym or field rentals
Transportation
Swimming lessons
Outdoor recreation
Program fees
Inclusive or adaptive equipment
Facility improvements
Again, look at the whole program
A recreation program for young people with disabilities may also fit disability funding
A free sports program in an underserved neighbourhood may connect with community development
A program designed partly around youth mental health may open another avenue

You do not need to change your program to fit a grant.

You need to make sure you are describing the program completely.

Child welfare is a different kind of funding conversation

Child welfare can involve much more intensive support.

Organizations may be working with children and families experiencing abuse, neglect, housing instability, foster care, family separation, poverty or other significant challenges.

Funding needs may include:

Foster youth support
Kinship care
Family preservation
Child abuse prevention
Mental health services
Case management
Housing
Transitional support
Independent living programs
Parenting programs
Employment support for youth leaving care
Education support
Emergency assistance

This is also an area where being specific matters enormously.

“We support vulnerable children.”

What does that mean?

Children in foster care?

Young people aging out of care?

Families at risk of separation?

Children affected by abuse?

Kinship caregivers?

Young people experiencing homelessness?

Children with a parent experiencing substance use?

Those distinctions matter because foundations may have very particular interests.

The more clearly you can explain who you help and what support you provide, the easier it becomes to research funders that have backed similar work.

Your program probably fits more than one funding category

This is one of the most useful things to remember when researching grants for children and youth services.

Let’s say you run an employment-readiness program for teenagers. Obviously, you can search Children & Youth.

But you may also want to look at:

Workforce development

Education

Economic mobility

Career readiness

Now imagine you operate an outdoor recreation program for children with disabilities.

You may be looking at:

Children & Youth

Disability Services

Health

Recreation

Or perhaps you run a mentoring program for young people in foster care.

There may be overlap between:

Mentorship

Child Welfare

Youth Development

Education

Mental Health

This is not about trying to force your organization into every possible category because you want more grant results.

It is about understanding all the legitimate parts of the work you already do.

That is one reason Grant Advance’s Search Engines allow nonprofits to search funders using multiple criteria, including keywords, funding interests, geography, historical giving and previous recipients.

Look at who the foundation has actually funded

Suppose you find a foundation that says it supports children and youth. Good start. Now keep going.

Who got the money?

Summer camps?

Schools?

Youth employment programs?

Foster-care organizations?

Sports programs?

Mental health organizations?

Large national charities?

Small local nonprofits?

Now look at the grants themselves.

What were they for?

This is where foundation research becomes much more useful. Maybe one youth organization received $10,000 for camp scholarships. Another received $50,000 for staff. Another received $75,000 for a new recreation facility. Another received general operating support.

Those grants tell you much more than the words “supports youth.”

Grant Advance’s Foundation Profile Pages can help you review previous recipients, grant amounts, giving interests and other information before deciding whether a foundation deserves a place in your prospect list.

What does children and youth funding actually look like?

Now, this is where the research gets interesting. We searched the Grant Advance platform using terms including children, youth, youth services, mentorship and children’s camp. Three foundations that appeared in the results are shown below. At first glance, all three have a history that involves children or young people. But once you actually look at who received the money, what the grant was for and how much was given, you begin to see three very different funding patterns.

Foundation	Examples From Its Giving History	Overall Grant Statistics	What Stands Out	Grant Advance Profile
The James Annenberg La Vea Char Fdn	Recent records include $550,093 to Save the Children in 2024, $550,093 to Feed the Children in 2024 and $400,068 to Shriners Hospital for Children in 2024. These organizations also appear repeatedly in earlier years. Feed the Children received $614,698 in 2022, while Save the Children received the same amount that year.	Average: $492,142 Median: $460,618 Largest: $726,462 Average annual grants: $9.15M	The visible history shows large, repeated grants to established children’s organizations rather than lots of smaller awards to local youth programs. Grant Advance shows giving across 13 states.	View the James Annenberg La Vea Char Fdn profile
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation	Recent grants include $1,552,808 to Advocates for Youth in 2025 for general operating support, $853,788 to Alliance for Youth Organizing in 2025 for general operating support, and $250,926 to the National Center for Youth Law in 2025 for program support. Alliance for Youth Organizing and Advocates for Youth also appear repeatedly in previous years.	Average: $1.8M Median: $376,557 Largest: $80.5M Average annual grants: $683M	One of the most interesting things here is the amount of general operating support visible in the history. The youth-related recipients shown are largely focused on youth advocacy, organizing and law, which is useful context for deciding whether a traditional mentorship, camp or recreation program would actually fit. Grant Advance shows giving in all 50 states.	View the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation profile
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley	Search results involving children include $455,274 to the American Diabetes Association in 2025 for training and mentorship programs, $1,004,026 to Project Concern Zambia Limited for an Empowered Children and Adolescents Program, and several grants connected with pediatric medical research, including grants to The Hospital for Sick Children.	Average: $695,935 Median: $341,702 Largest: $22.5M Average annual grants: $381.9M	This is a very good example of why a keyword result needs another look. The word children appears frequently, but much of the visible giving relates to pediatric health and medical research rather than traditional children’s services. Grant Advance shows giving in all 50 states.	View the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley profile

Source: Grant Advance Foundation Profile Pages and historical grant records. Grant statistics shown above represent each foundation’s overall giving and are not limited to children and youth grants. Historical giving does not mean a foundation is currently accepting applications or that your organization will be eligible.

This is why you should read the grant purpose

Imagine you search:

Children
Youth
Mentorship
Camp

And get 200 foundation results. Wonderful. Now comes the useful part. Open the foundation. Look at the recipient. Then look at the purpose.

Was the money for:

Youth mentorship?
Medical research involving children?
A new hospital wing?
General operating support?
Youth advocacy?
Camp scholarships?
Sports equipment?
A children’s mental health program?
A capital project?

The foundation may technically appear in your search because it funded something involving children, but that does not mean it funds the particular work your organization does.

Grant Advance’s Foundation Profile Pages make it possible to move from the search result into the actual giving history and start answering those questions.

The biggest grant is not necessarily the number you should care about

These three foundations also show why you should not look at the biggest number on the page and start planning your ask around it.

The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation has a largest overall grant of $80.5 million.

That does not mean your youth mentoring organization should ask for $80 million.

Obviously.

But the same principle applies when the numbers are less ridiculous.

Look at what the foundation has given to organizations similar to yours.

Look at the purpose.

Look at whether the recipient was new or established.

Look at whether the organization appears every year.

Look at the median and average grants.

Then start thinking about what a reasonable request might look like.

The number you want is not:

What’s the biggest grant this foundation has ever made?

It is:

What has this foundation historically given for work similar to ours?

That answer is much more useful.

Find Aligned Funders with Grant Advance

Geography deserves more attention too

A foundation can look perfect until you look at the map. It funds mentorship. Your organization runs mentorship. Its typical grants are exactly in your range. Wonderful. Then you realize almost all of its giving stays in one state, province or city and you are nowhere near it. That does not necessarily make funding impossible. It does make the foundation less obvious as a prospect.

Look at where previous recipients are located.

Does the foundation fund nationally?

Regionally?

Locally?

Does one community appear again and again?

Does your service area appear anywhere in the history?

You can use Grant Advance’s Foundation Directory Search and Search Engines to narrow research around geography rather than finding out halfway through the process that your organization operates outside the foundation’s normal giving area.

What should you measure in a youth program?

This is another area where nonprofits can sometimes make things harder than necessary.

You do not need 47 KPIs.

You need enough information to show that something happened because your program existed.

The measures will depend entirely on the program.

Program	Useful Things to Measure
Mentorship	Mentor retention, relationship duration, school engagement, confidence, goals achieved
Camps	Attendance, scholarships provided, repeat participation, accessibility and skills developed
Youth leadership	Youth-led projects, leadership roles, volunteer hours, civic participation
Recreation	Participation, retention, physical activity, access for underserved youth
Child welfare	Family stability, housing, permanency, service completion and transition outcomes
After-school programs	Attendance, academic support, school engagement and skill development
Employment programs	Training completed, certifications, work placements, employment and retention

Numbers matter. If 500 young people participated, tell the funder. But then tell them what happened.

Did 80% complete the program?

Did more young people stay engaged in school?

Did 30 teenagers find work?

Did 75 children attend camp who could not otherwise afford it?

Did families remain safely together?

Did young people leaving care move into stable housing?

That second piece is where the number becomes meaningful.

Government funding belongs in the conversation too

Private foundations are only one source of funding for children and youth services. Government programs may also support youth employment, leadership, volunteering, child and family services, accessibility and other youth-serving programs. Employment and Social Development Canada maintains a searchable list of federal funding programs for jobs, skills training and social-development projects.

Search Government of Canada funding programs

Canada Service Corps also supports youth service and youth-led community projects through various program streams and micro-grant opportunities.

Explore Canada Service Corps grant opportunities

Funding programs open and close, so always check the current eligibility and application dates rather than relying on an old article or grant list. And do not assume you have to choose between government grants and foundation funding. Most organizations need a mix.

Before you add a foundation to your youth funding list

Have a look at what you know.

Has the foundation funded children or youth organizations before?

Has it funded programs similar to yours?

What were those grants for?

Does it give in your area?

Do the grant amounts make sense?

Does it support organizations of your size?

Are there repeat recipients?

Does it appear to add new grantees?

Does it accept applications or inquiries?

Can you explain in one or two sentences why this particular foundation belongs on your list?

That final question is important.

If the answer is:

They fund children.

Keep researching.

If the answer is:

They have funded three youth mentorship organizations in our region in the last four years, their grants are generally between $15,000 and $30,000, and they have supported program staff and expansion.

Now we have something.

This is exactly what we mean when we talk about finding aligned foundations.

How Grant Advance helps children and youth nonprofits find funders

You can absolutely do foundation research manually. Search Google. Open foundation websites. Read tax filings. Create spreadsheets. Look up previous recipients. Compare grants. Then repeat that process for the next foundation. And the next. It works. It is also a lot.

Grant Advance brings foundation information and historical giving together so nonprofits can search for funders based on the work they actually do.

For children and youth organizations, that might mean searches around:

Youth mentorship
Summer camps
Child welfare
Youth leadership
Recreation
Foster youth
After-school programming
Youth employment
Teen programs
Youth mental health
Children with disabilities
Family support

Then you can start looking at the history.

Who received grants?

How much?

Where were they located?

What did the foundation actually fund?

Does the same type of program appear repeatedly?

That information can help you turn a very long list of possible funders into a much more useful list of foundations worth pursuing.

Explore Grant Advance Search Engines

Frequently Asked Questions About Grants for Children and Youth Programs

Are there grants for youth programs?

Yes. Private foundations, family foundations, community foundations, corporations and government programs may provide funding for mentorship, camps, recreation, youth leadership, child welfare, after-school programs, employment initiatives and other youth services.

What can grants for youth programs pay for?

Depending on the funder, grants may support staffing, transportation, equipment, mentorship, camp scholarships, recreation, facilities, training, food, technology and general operating costs. Always check the individual foundation’s guidelines.

Are there grants for youth mentorship programs?

Yes. Youth mentorship grants may support mentor recruitment, screening, background checks, training, program coordination, activities, transportation and expansion.

Can nonprofits get grants for summer camps?

Yes. Camps may receive funding from foundations interested in children and youth, recreation, education, health, disability services, outdoor programs and other causes depending on the type of camp and population served.

Are there grants for youth leadership programs?

Yes. Youth leadership funding may support youth councils, leadership training, peer mentorship, volunteering, civic engagement and youth-led community projects.

Are there grants for child welfare organizations?

Yes. Child welfare grants may support foster youth, family preservation, kinship care, child abuse prevention, housing, mental health, case management and transition-to-adulthood services.

Are there grants for youth sports and recreation?

Yes. Foundations and public funders may support recreation programs, sports equipment, coaching, facilities, transportation, accessibility and fee subsidies.

Can grants pay salaries for youth programs?

Some funders allow staffing and personnel expenses while others restrict salaries, administration or overhead. Review the funder’s guidelines and previous giving to see what types of expenses it has historically supported.

Can small youth nonprofits receive foundation grants?

Yes. A smaller nonprofit may actually be a very good fit for a local or family foundation whose previous giving includes similar community organizations. Look at typical recipient size, geography and grant amounts rather than assuming the largest foundations are your best prospects.

How do I find foundations that fund youth programs?

Start with the specific work you need funded rather than searching only for “youth grants.” Research foundations that have supported similar programs, populations and organizations, then review geography, grant amounts, purposes and current application requirements.

Funding the work children and young people actually need

People see the end result. The child going to camp. The teenager meeting with a mentor. The soccer team taking the field. The young person proudly presenting a community project. The family getting help at exactly the right time. What they do not always see is everything that had to happen behind the scenes.

Someone recruited the mentor.

Someone drove the bus.

Someone bought the equipment.

Someone completed the intake.

Someone organized the program.

Someone found the facility.

Someone trained the staff.

Someone paid the insurance.

And somebody had to find the money to make all of that possible.

There are foundations interested in helping children and young people thrive. The challenge is finding the ones whose giving history gives your organization a genuine reason to believe there may be a fit. So get specific about the program. Get specific about the population. Get specific about what the money will pay for. Then look for funders that have shown, through their actual giving, that they understand that kind of work.

That is a much stronger starting point than simply searching for “grants for kids.”

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