Church Planting Grants: Who Funds New Churches (2026)

What 261 Church Planting Grants in Foundation Filings Show

The 261 planting grants add up to $10,507,176, and that total misleads unless you read it next to the median. Just 26 grants of $100,000 or more hold $5,883,155, 56% of the dollars. The middle grant is $10,500. A quarter of the grants are $5,000 or less, and three quarters are $45,000 or less.

Source: Grantsights analysis of the 990-PF filings it has loaded (tax years 2021 to 2025, mostly 2023 and 2024), as of November 5, 2026.

Three things stand out. Planting is a tiny corner of church giving: the same filings hold 147,187 church and ministry grants from 32,236 foundations. Planting funders are a little more closed: across all church and ministry grants 23.1% of foundations have a filing that shows a way to apply, against 20.4% for planting. And loyalty is extreme. In the wider church data 51% of foundations paid a single church or ministry; among planting funders it's 85%.

The grants are spread over 38 states by recipient address. North Carolina and Florida lead with 26 grants each, then Texas and California with 19 each. The state guides for North Carolina, Florida and Texas list the wider pool of church funders there.

Where the Foundation Money Actually Goes

Roughly half of the planting dollars look like overseas work: 89 grants from 42 foundations, worth $5,031,827, carry missions or foreign-field wording, and their median is $16,000. The U.S.-looking remainder is 172 grants from 67 foundations, $5,475,349 in total, with a $10,000 median.

The usual path runs from a donor's family foundation to a network or mission agency, then to a planter the network picked. The Jennings Family Foundation paid $1,000,000 to Timothy Initiative in Raleigh, North Carolina, in tax year 2023, with the purpose "General Support/Church Planting". The recipient is a planting organization, not a congregation. That foundation's filing shows a way to apply, which doesn't mean it would fund a single new church.

The same shape repeats inside denominations. Gospel Growth Fund paid Mission to North America, the planting arm of the Presbyterian Church in America, $399,000 in tax year 2025 for "CHURCH PLANTING". The same fund also paid individual congregations directly: one church in Connecticut, Christ Presbyterian Church in Wallingford, received $15,000 in tax year 2023 under the same two-word purpose. Every church on that fund's list sits inside one denomination.

Regional networks get named gifts too. The Ergon Foundation paid Pillar Church Planting Network in Wake Forest, North Carolina, $50,000 in tax year 2025 for a "Church Plant Startup Fund". Pinetops Foundation paid City to City LA in Long Beach, California, $150,000 in tax year 2024 "TO SUPPORT CHURCH PLANTING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA". Neither filing shows a way to apply, so the planter's route to that money is the network's own selection.

Direct gifts to a plant do happen, and they're small. Case in point: The Jeannette Church Plant in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, received $12,500 from Brotherhood Mutual Foundation Inc in tax year 2023 as a "Kingdom Advancing Grant", and that foundation's filing shows a way to apply. Des Plaines Publishing Charitable Trust paid five churches $5,000 each in tax year 2024 for "Church Plant Resources and Supplies".

Foundations fund planting through people they already trust. For how to tell a closed funder from an open one in the filing itself, see how to read a 990-PF.

Denominational Planting Funds That Publish Their Terms

Five funding sources state money terms on a page or guide that Grantsights loaded on November 9, 2026, and a sixth has posted that new grants are coming in 2027. Two match what the planter raises, one matches a priest's pay on a falling scale, one gives capped grants, one sends yearly support through the sending church, and one is between rounds. None is open to a plant outside its own body.

The Assemblies of God match is a revolving fund, not a gift. According to the Assemblies of God matching fund program page, a funded church gives 10% of its undesignated monthly income to the network until the award is fully replenished, then 1% as an ongoing partner. The page says that usually takes several years, and that the money can't go to building renovations or long-term capital.

ARC's match comes with a pay-it-forward ask. According to the ARC launch program page, the network matches the first $50,000 a planter raises, and it asks planters to re-invest those dollars through missions giving. The page doesn't state a percentage or schedule, so ask for the written agreement.

The Episcopal grant is small on purpose. The 2026 Application Guide sets one grant category at up to $20,000, prefers a dollar-for-dollar match from the diocese, asks for a one-year operating budget and no longer funds discernment phases.

Southern Baptist money moves through the sending church. According to the SBC of Virginia Church Planter Guide, the state convention gives each planter $6,000 a year for four years, and every payment, including NAMB's monthly support, is sent to the sending church and not to the planter or the plant. The guide also expects a funded church to give 10% of income to missions, 6% of it through the Cooperative Program. That figure applies to Virginia only.

United Methodist new church starts are funded conference by conference; the United Methodist church grants guide covers that structure.

Networks That Coach and Assess but Don't Post Dollar Terms

Seven well-known planting networks have public pages that describe a process and name no dollar amount at all, nothing like the $50,000 matches above. They may still give; you just can't plan a budget from the website.

• Send Network (NAMB). The national planting page (opens in a new tab) lays out an application, an online pre-assessment and a two-day in-person assessment, and says the network works alongside the planter and the sending church. No amounts or durations appear there.
• Stadia. The startup page (opens in a new tab) offers coaching, soul care, on-demand training and project management. Grantsights found no grant, loan, match or fee stated on it.
• Converge. The church planting page (opens in a new tab) describes a form, a call from a regional leader, an assessment and a training path that starts with a free course.
• PCA Mission to North America. The church planting page (opens in a new tab) reports 54 new works started in the U.S. and Canada in 2025, and its planter resources tell planters to contact the office to set up a Church Planter Fund; the page gives no dollar terms for it.
• Resonate Global Mission (Christian Reformed Church). The planting page (opens in a new tab) lists five steps ending in a Partnership Agreement and says partners may support a plant in ways that can include grants. It gives no amounts.
• Evangelical Covenant Church. The church planting page (opens in a new tab) says local churches, regional conferences and the denominational team together provide coaching and financial support. The amount isn't published.
• Acts 29. The FAQ page (opens in a new tab) Grantsights loaded gives no dollar terms for planter funding.

Who Gets Turned Down and Why

Of the 103 foundations with a planting grant, 88 (85%) paid exactly one planting recipient, so a cold letter is competing with an existing relationship.

A plant with no network, denomination or sending church. This request fails because the funder has no one to vouch for the planter and no one to take over if the launch stalls. Every published fund in the table above requires credentials, a bishop's letter, a district charter or network approval.

A planter who hasn't been assessed. The Assemblies of God fund requires its Launch Assessment. Send Network requires a pre-assessment and a two-day retreat.

A plant with no budget. The Episcopal guide asks for a one-year operating budget. The Orthodox Church in America grant is calculated on a priest's compensation package.

A plant that asks a foundation to be its main funder. The median foundation grant to a church recipient is $10,000, and the middle half runs from $5,000 to $20,000. At that size, most of a plant's budget has to come from individuals and partner churches. Grants are a small slice, so a proposal that leans on them for the core budget reads as a plant without a base.

The opinion here is blunt: a planter with 20 committed households and one partner church is in a stronger position than a planter with 20 grant applications out.

What Church Planting Network Sites Don't Tell You

Grantsights checked 13 network and denominational planting pages against the 990-PF rows and found four gaps between what the sites say and what a planter needs to know.

1. Whether the money comes back out. The Assemblies of God page is unusually clear about its 10% replenishment. ARC's launch page mentions paying it forward without a number. Most other sites say "financial support" and stop. A match you replenish through years of percentage giving belongs in your year-two and year-three budgets.

2. That the check often isn't written to you. The SBC of Virginia guide says funding goes to the sending church, which then decides how and when to pass it on. PCA Mission to North America tells planters to contact its office to set up a Church Planter Fund. Either way, your sending church's bookkeeper is part of your cash flow.

3. How much of the network's own budget comes from a few donors. The filings show family foundations writing six-figure checks to planting networks: $399,000 to Mission to North America from one fund in one year, $150,000 to City to City LA from another.

4. That "grant" can mean a training voucher. Resonate's support page names a Ministry Leader Health and Development Grant and a Fundraising Training Grant. Those pay for a leader's growth, not rent or salary.

Network pages are written to recruit and assess planters. Funding terms get settled later in a written agreement, so ask for it early.

Legal Setup Before You Ask Anyone for Money

These 4 pages from the IRS, all loaded on November 9, 2026, cover what a new church needs on paper before a funder can pay it.

Tax-exempt status. According to IRS Publication 1828 (opens in a new tab), churches that meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3) are automatically considered tax exempt and aren't required to apply for recognition. The same publication says many churches seek recognition anyway because it gives leaders, members and contributors assurance. A church that applies files Form 1023 and pays a user fee. Many funders ask for a determination letter anyway.

Group rulings. Publication 1828 says a church is recognized as exempt if it's included in a list provided by a parent organization that holds a group ruling. The IRS keeps current procedures on its group exemption resources page (opens in a new tab), which lists Revenue Procedure 2026-8.

Whether you're a church yet. The IRS page on how "church" is defined (opens in a new tab) says the tax code uses the word without defining it, and lists attributes the IRS and courts weigh, such as a distinct legal existence, a recognized creed and form of worship, regular services, an established place of worship and a regular congregation. A launch team in a living room may not show many of those yet, which is one more reason early money flows through an existing church.

An EIN. The IRS says on its employer identification number page (opens in a new tab) that every organization must have an EIN even if it won't have employees, and that an organization shouldn't apply until it's legally formed. Publication 1828 adds that a church needs the number to open a bank account and to be listed as a subordinate in a group ruling. The application is Form SS-4.

Year one under the sending church. One arrangement, the one the SBC of Virginia guide describes, is for the sending church to receive and hold the plant's money until the new church is ready to stand alone. The IRS pages above don't address this arrangement, so get the terms in writing: who owns the funds, who approves spending, and when the account transfers.

Common Mistakes and Red Flags

Five errors stand out when the published terms are set beside the filings.

1. Treating a match as free money. A common mistake is to book a $50,000 match as income and ignore the replenishment or pay-it-forward giving that follows. Planters underestimate what 10% of monthly income means for a young church.
2. Mass-mailing the foundations in a list. With 85% of planting funders paying one recipient, a blast to 100 foundations is a red flag to the few that read it.
3. Quoting the mean. The average planting grant in the filings is far above the median because of a handful of six-figure and seven-figure gifts to agencies. Plan on $5,000 to $20,000 from any single foundation, if anything.
4. Asking planting funds to buy property. The Assemblies of God fund excludes renovations and long-term capital, and the Episcopal guide allows capital only when essential. Building money is a different search; start with church building purchase and construction funding.
5. Missing the calendar. The Episcopal window was 30 days in mid-2026. The Orthodox Church in America deadline fell in September for funding that begins the following January.

A Six-Step Plan for a New Plant

These 6 steps follow the order funders themselves use, and a typical foundation check at the end of them is $10,000.

1. Secure a sending or partner church first. Get its commitment in writing, including whether it will hold funds for the plant in year one.
2. Go through assessment. Use your denomination's process or a network's. A completed assessment is the document most published funds ask for before anything else.
3. Build a three-year budget. Show salary, rent, launch costs, each income source and any replenishment giving your network requires.
4. Settle the paperwork. Form the legal entity, get an EIN, and collect either a determination letter or a group-ruling letter from the parent body.
5. Apply to your own body's fund on its calendar. Confirm terms and dates on the program's own page first.
6. Then look at foundations, narrowly. Search for funders that already gave to churches in your tradition and your state, and check whether each filing shows a way to apply. The church grants page and the eligibility checker are the places to start, and the guide on how to apply for church grants covers the letter itself.

Once the plant is running programs, wider pools open up. Grants for small churches and foundations that give grants to churches cover general church funders, and grants for ministries covers outreach work a young church may run.

For the foundation research itself, the Grantsights church funder list covers every state and shows each foundation's church and ministry grants from its own 990-PF: amount, recipient, year, purpose and a link to the filing, plus whether the filing shows a way to apply. You pay once, there's no subscription, and a refund is available within 30 days. The free preview on this page reads a newer pull of the data, so its counts can differ slightly from the figures above.

Limits of This Data

The count of 261 grants rests on a text match, and that brings four limits.

• Purpose lines are short and uneven. A gift recorded as "general support" to a six-month-old church won't appear here. A gift to a mission agency that mentions planting will, even if the churches are abroad.
• The overseas split is an estimate. Grantsights sorted grants by wording, not by where the money was spent. "Roughly half" is as precise as that method allows.
• Years are uneven. Most rows come from tax years 2023 and 2024. The 42 rows from 2025 reflect returns filed so far, not a drop in giving.
• Only private foundations file a 990-PF. Gifts from donor-advised funds, individuals, churches and denominational budgets aren't in these filings, and those are likely the larger sources of planting money.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there grants to start a church?

Yes, but most of the money sits inside denominations and networks, not in open foundation programs. Grantsights analysis of loaded 990-PF filings found 261 church planting grants from 103 foundations, with a median of $10,500, and 88 of those 103 foundations paid a single planting recipient.

How much is a typical church planting grant?

In the foundation filings the median planting grant is $10,500, or $10,000 where the recipient is itself a church. Denominational funds vary: the Assemblies of God matching fund goes up to $50,000, ARC matches the first $50,000 a planter raises, and The Episcopal Church caps each grant at $20,000.

Do church planting matching funds have to be paid back?

Some do, in practice. The Assemblies of God fund asks a funded church to give 10% of undesignated monthly income until the award is replenished, then 1% after that. ARC asks planters to re-invest its matched dollars through missions giving.

Can an independent church plant with no denomination get a grant?

It's hard. Every denominational fund Grantsights checked requires credentials, a bishop's or district's sign-off, or network approval. Among foundations, only about 20% of those with planting grants have a filing that shows a way to apply. Start with a partner church and individual donors.

Does a new church plant need 501(c)(3) status to receive grants?

IRS Publication 1828 says churches that meet the 501(c)(3) requirements are automatically considered tax exempt without applying. Many funders still want paper: an IRS determination letter, or proof the plant is covered by a parent body's group ruling. Either way the plant needs its own EIN.

Can planting grants pay for a building?

Usually not. The Assemblies of God matching fund excludes building renovations and long-term capital, and The Episcopal Church allows capital spending only when it's essential to the new community.

Sources Checked

All 17 sources below were loaded on November 9, 2026, except the 990-PF data, which was read on November 5, 2026.

• Assemblies of God Church Multiplication Network: Funding (opens in a new tab)
• ARC: Launch (opens in a new tab)
• The Episcopal Church: New Episcopal Communities Grants, 2026 Application Guide (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• Orthodox Church in America: 2027 Church Planting Grant Application (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• SBC of Virginia: Church Planter Guide (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): Funding Opportunities (opens in a new tab)
• Send Network: Church Planting (opens in a new tab)
• Stadia: Startup (opens in a new tab)
• Converge: Church Planting (opens in a new tab)
• PCA Mission to North America: Church Planting (opens in a new tab)
• Resonate Global Mission: Planting a Church with Resonate (opens in a new tab)
• Evangelical Covenant Church: Church Planting (opens in a new tab)
• Acts 29: FAQ (opens in a new tab)
• IRS Publication 1828, Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: "Churches" Defined (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Employer Identification Number (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Group Exemption Resources (opens in a new tab)
• Grantsights analysis of the 990-PF filings it has loaded (tax years 2021 to 2025, mostly 2023 and 2024), as of November 5, 2026