Churches and their nonprofit arms serve as vital community hubs, often providing essential services like food pantries, soup kitchens, and youth programs. While churches inherently hold nonprofit status, many are just beginning to explore grant funding as a way to support their capital needs and expand their community-facing projects.

Grant opportunities for churches are diverse. They include capital grants for building repairs, major renovations, and accessibility improvements to protect and enhance the building. Other common types are program grants for specific community outreach initiatives and grants from foundations dedicated to preserving historic houses of worship.

To successfully find and secure grants, church leaders should first clearly define their needs (e.g., capital improvements vs. programmatic support). Success often comes from researching foundations that specifically fund religious organizations or corporate programs, like Walmart's Spark Good, which is open to faith-based organizations running projects that benefit the community at large.