Grants for Food Pantries 2026: USDA, EFSP, Foundations

If you're running a church pantry, a community food shelf, a campus pantry or a small nonprofit that hands groceries directly to families, this guide covers where the money and food actually come from. It's for the pantry itself, not the regional food bank that supplies it, which has its own guide on grants for food banks.

Grants for Food Pantries: 6 Routes and Who Controls Each

A food pantry's funding comes from 6 routes, and only 1 of them is a cash grant you can apply for without a local gatekeeper. The table shows who decides.

Grantsights checked each program's current USDA, FEMA and HUD page for who can apply and who decides. The pattern is clear once it's laid out: federal programs feed the system from the top, and the pantry raises its own operating cash from local and private sources. The common mistake is spending months looking for a federal "food pantry grant" that doesn't exist as a direct award.

TEFAP: Free USDA Food Through Your Food Bank

The Emergency Food Assistance Program is the largest federal food source for pantries. According to USDA's TEFAP fact sheet (opens in a new tab), the Food and Nutrition Service administers TEFAP federally, and all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam run it at the state level. USDA buys food and makes it available to state distributing agencies, which provide it to local agencies they select, usually food banks. Food banks then pass it to organizations that serve the public directly, such as soup kitchens and food pantries.

According to USDA, TEFAP received $461.5 million in FY2024 to purchase USDA Foods and $80 million for administrative costs. USDA also made $955 million in "bonus" foods available in FY2023 and provided another $943 million in FY2024 through Commodity Credit Corporation authority. More than 130 products are available, from canned and fresh produce to meat, eggs, rice, pasta, milk and cheese.

What a pantry needs to know:

• Eligibility runs through the state. Public or private nonprofits that provide food for home use or serve prepared meals to people with low income may be eligible recipient agencies. The state agency picks which ones it works with.
• Households must meet state income rules. Recipients of food for home consumption have to meet statewide income eligibility guidelines, which can include automatic eligibility through other income-based programs. People eating prepared meals are presumed to have low income.
• Some administrative money flows down. State agencies get TEFAP administrative funds for storage and distribution, and those funds must, in part, be passed down to local agencies. Ask your food bank how it shares them.

The first route for nearly every new pantry is becoming a partner agency of its regional food bank. That one step can bring TEFAP food, donated food and sometimes small equipment grants. Our USDA food assistance grants guide covers the wider set of USDA nutrition programs.

CSFP: Monthly Food Boxes for Seniors

If a large share of your pantry's visitors are older adults, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program can add a monthly food box at no cost to them. According to USDA's CSFP page (opens in a new tab), the program serves people with low income who are at least 60 years of age, and USDA distributes both food and administrative funds to participating states and Indian Tribal Organizations.

CSFP isn't a grant you write. States assign caseload and choose local agencies, which may use pantries, senior centers and churches as distribution sites. The best route is to ask your state's CSFP agency, or your food bank if it runs CSFP locally, whether it needs another distribution site in your area. A pantry that already sees 50 or more seniors a month makes a good case.

EFSP: Cash for Groceries Through Your Local Board

The Emergency Food and Shelter Program is one of the few federal sources that pays a pantry cash for food. According to FEMA's EFSP page (opens in a new tab), the program was authorized by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 and supplements local organizations helping people at risk of hunger or homelessness. Eligible services include served meals or groceries, mass shelter or hotel and motel lodging, rent or mortgage payments, and utility bill payments.

The honest read on 2026: FEMA's page confirms the FY2025 round but says nothing about FY2026. Don't build your budget on EFSP until your local board announces a round. When it does, local boards usually advertise in the newspaper or through the United Way, and the application is short compared with a federal grant. A pantry that's never applied should introduce itself to the local board chair before the next round opens.

CDBG and Community Facilities: Money for the Building

Pantries outgrow church basements. When you need a building, a walk-in cooler or a loading dock, 2 federal programs matter.

The Community Development Block Grant flows through local governments. According to HUD's CDBG page (opens in a new tab), HUD doesn't give CDBG funds directly to nonprofits, businesses or individuals. Local governments run the program and choose which projects get funded, and at least 70% of funds must benefit low- and moderate-income people over a 1, 2 or 3 year period. Cities that receive CDBG directly are mostly principal cities of metro areas and other cities over 50,000 people, plus urban counties over 200,000. Smaller towns apply through their state's CDBG program.

For a pantry, CDBG can pay for facility work or, within limits, public services such as food distribution. The process runs through your city or county's annual action plan, which includes public hearings. Pantries that show up at those hearings with a specific request, such as a $40,000 cooler and freezer project, get further than pantries that send a general letter.

In rural areas, USDA's Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program (opens in a new tab) funds essential community facilities for public bodies and nonprofits. Grant dollars are limited and usually go to the smallest, lowest-income communities, so many pantries end up with a low-interest loan paired with local fundraising. Call your USDA Rural Development state office before you draw plans.

Private Foundations: The Main Source of Cash for Pantries

Food comes from TEFAP and donations. Rent, utilities, freezers, a van, a part-time coordinator and the software to track visits come mostly from private foundations, and the ones that report grants on IRS Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab) leave a public record of who they funded.

Grantsights analysis of 990-PF grant records pulled October 29, 2026 counted grants to food, shelter and housing recipients by the recipient's state. These are the 8 states with the most grants:

Food pantries show up by name in these filings. In the same data, "food pantry" was the stated purpose on 153 grants to Massachusetts recipients, 114 in Illinois, 88 in New York, 59 in Wisconsin and 56 in Texas. In Minnesota and Vermont, filings more often say "food shelf."

Some pantry grants are large. Specifically, the W T Bland Jr Charitable TUA gave Lake Cares Food Pantry in Mount Dora, Florida $210,000 for a capital campaign and pantry programs in tax year 2025, according to its 990-PF filings (opens in a new tab). The Lester and Frances Johnson Foundation gave The River Food Pantry in Madison, Wisconsin $100,000 (filings (opens in a new tab)), and the Perry and Joyce Johns Foundation gave AMEN Food Pantry in Corinth, Mississippi $100,000 (filings (opens in a new tab)). In rural Oregon, the Ralph Hull Foundation gave South Benton Food Pantry in Monroe $56,000 to rebuild, remodel and buy food (filings (opens in a new tab)).

Those are among the biggest grants in each state. The typical grant is far smaller: the median sits at $5,000 in most large states. A pantry's first letter to a foundation it doesn't know should ask for something in that range, tied to a number the funder can picture, such as a month of fresh produce for 200 households.

Grantsights' food, shelter and housing funder list pulls the foundations whose own 990-PF filings show grants to food pantries, food banks, shelters and family services, grouped by the state where the money went. For each one you'll see its biggest grants with recipient, city and stated purpose, the tax year, a link to its filings, and whether its latest return says it accepts requests. The preview shows your state's count and one foundation in full. Every state in this cause costs $29, or $99 unlocks every cause list for 12 months, and both carry a 30-day full refund.

What USDA Doesn't Tell You About Pantry Funding

USDA's TEFAP pages describe how food moves. They don't describe what it costs a pantry to receive it:

• Free food isn't free to handle. TEFAP and donated food arrive in bulk, often on pallets, sometimes frozen. A pantry without a cooler, freezer space and volunteers who can lift cases will turn food away. Budget for storage before you sign a partner agency agreement.
• Partner agency rules come with paperwork. Food banks have to track TEFAP distribution, so they pass reporting and civil rights requirements to their partners. Pantries that skip sign-in records or income self-declaration forms can lose TEFAP access.
• Religious pantries can take TEFAP, with conditions. Faith-based pantries can distribute USDA Foods, but they can't make religious activity a condition of receiving food. The church food pantry grants guide covers this in detail.
• Foundation money is local. Many of the foundations that fund pantries gave to only a handful of recipients near where their founders lived. A national foundation rarely funds a single neighborhood pantry, so spend your time on the funders already giving in your county.

A First-Year Funding Plan for a New Pantry

A pantry in its first 12 months can't apply everywhere. This order matches how the money flows.

Pantries that follow this order have numbers to show by month 4, which is when the foundation letters go out. Pantries that write to foundations in month 1 have nothing to report and usually get declined. Our community foundation grants guide explains how local grant cycles work, and the food security grants guide covers larger hunger programs for groups that grow beyond a single pantry.

Related Guides for Pantries and Their Neighbors

Pantries often share space or volunteers with other local groups:

• Pantries that also provide shelter or case management should read grants for homeless shelters.
• Rural pantries often operate next to a fire hall that hosts distributions, and the grants for volunteer fire departments guide shows how those departments fund their buildings.
• Pantries in historic church or grange buildings may find help in grants for historical societies.

You can also search open federal programs by state and cause in Grantsights' grant search.

FAQ: Common Questions

Can a small food pantry get federal grants? Rarely as a direct federal award. Most federal help reaches pantries as food or as local subgrants. TEFAP food comes through the state agency and usually a regional food bank, EFSP money comes through a local board in your county or city, and CDBG comes through your city, county or state. Private foundations are the main source of cash grants for a pantry's rent, freezers, van and staff.

How does a food pantry get TEFAP food? Each state's TEFAP agency selects the local organizations it works with, usually food banks, which then pass food to pantries, soup kitchens and other groups that serve the public. Public or private nonprofits that give food for home use or serve prepared meals to people with low income may be eligible. Start by asking your regional food bank whether you can become a partner agency and what its requirements are.

Is EFSP still funding food pantries in 2026? FEMA's EFSP page reports $117 million for fiscal year 2025 under the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2025, passed to the EFSP National Board. As of its October 23, 2026 update, the page didn't mention fiscal year 2026 funding. Ask your local EFSP board whether a new round is scheduled before planning around it.

How much do foundations give food pantries? Most foundation grants to food and shelter groups are modest. Grantsights analysis of 990-PF filings pulled October 29, 2026 found a $5,000 median grant to food, shelter and housing recipients in New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio, $6,500 in California and $7,000 in Texas. Larger gifts happen for buildings, such as $210,000 to Lake Cares Food Pantry in Florida in tax year 2025.

What's the difference between a food bank and a food pantry for grants? A food bank is usually a regional warehouse that receives TEFAP food from the state and supplies hundreds of local agencies. A food pantry hands food directly to households. Federal food programs mostly fund the food bank, which passes food to the pantry, while the pantry raises its own cash from local foundations, churches, businesses and its community.

Sources

• USDA Food and Nutrition Service: TEFAP fact sheet (opens in a new tab)
• USDA Food and Nutrition Service: The Emergency Food Assistance Program (opens in a new tab)
• USDA Food and Nutrition Service: Commodity Supplemental Food Program (opens in a new tab)
• FEMA: Emergency Food and Shelter Program (opens in a new tab)
• HUD: Community Development Block Grant Program (opens in a new tab)
• USDA Rural Development: Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: About Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab)