Grants for Kinship Care Programs 2026: Funders

Kinship law check, October 31, 2026: For the federal sections below, Grantsights checked the text of 42 U.S.C. 627 on kinship navigators (opens in a new tab), the funding reservation in 42 U.S.C. 629g (opens in a new tab), 42 U.S.C. 673 on kinship guardianship assistance (opens in a new tab), 42 U.S.C. 674 on Title IV-E payments (opens in a new tab), the caregiver definitions in 42 U.S.C. 3030s (opens in a new tab) and services in 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1 (opens in a new tab), and the licensing definition at 45 CFR 1355.20 (opens in a new tab), and checked those rules against the foundation filings. The section 627 and 629g text is the version printed for after the January 2025 amendments took effect on October 1, 2025. Where official sources stop: none of them says whether HHS has an open kinship navigator competition this month, or how your state spends its share, because those choices are made by notice and by state plan.

How Grants for Kinship Care Programs Fit a Kinship Budget

Under 42 U.S.C. 627(d), a federal kinship navigator grant can pay no more than 75% of the cost of the funded activities, and section 627(e) lets up to 50% of your required share come in kind, such as space, equipment or services. That's the one federal grant written for programs like yours that a nonprofit can win straight from Washington. According to the kinship navigator program text in the amended statute, HHS may fund State, local and tribal child welfare agencies, private nonprofits with experience serving children in kinship care, and colleges, for 1 to 3 years.

Most kinship programs piece together a budget from several layers:

Grantsights' honest view: kinship programs live or die on the state contract, and foundations mostly pay for what the state won't, such as legal help for informal caregivers, support groups outside the child welfare system, and the evaluation a program needs before Title IV-E will pay for it.

Who Gave to Kinship Care Programs: What 990-PF Filings Show

Grantsights analysis of 990-PF filings pulled October 31, 2026 found 104 foundations that made 208 grants to kinship care programs, totaling $11,724,682. The median gift was $20,000, the 25th percentile $5,000 and the 75th percentile $70,000. According to IRS guidance on Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab), private foundations use that return to report their charitable distributions and activities, so each gift below traces to a public filing. Foundations reporting on Form 990-PF are a main private source for kinship programs, though government contracts usually make up the larger share of a navigator program's budget.

For example, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation gave United Ways of California $200,000 in 2023 and another $200,000 in 2024 to expand a statewide kinship navigator database that connects caregivers to resources. One organization in Nevada, Foster Kinship in Las Vegas, shows how a single kinship nonprofit stacks local gifts: $150,000 from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation in both 2023 and 2024, $70,000 from the Del E. Webb Foundation in 2024 for childcare services, $33,703 from the Zwagil Foundation in 2023, $25,000 from the Carol K. Engler Foundation in each of 2023 and 2024, the second for a nutrition program, and $20,000 from the Cashman Family Foundation in 2024 for general operations.

Kinship care funders by state

Each kinship program is counted in its own state, across every cause tag in the October 31, 2026 pull. Ohio, Utah, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland and New Mexico had 3 funders each, which brings the count to 17 states with 3 or more.

Reading the state table

Pennsylvania's $2,856,085 is mostly one foundation's initiative. The William Penn Foundation filed a long run of gifts marked grandfamilies and kinship support across Philadelphia: SeniorLAW Center drew $166,666 in 2022 and again in 2023, then $166,668 in 2024, and Turning Points for Children, Pradera Corporation, the Supportive Older Women's Network, Connectedly, the Urban Affairs Coalition and the Philadelphia Housing Authority each drew six-figure gifts. Even the Coalition of African Communities got $10,000 in 2023. A Philadelphia grandfamilies group should treat that initiative as its first call; groups elsewhere shouldn't expect anything like it.

Texas's $1,879,150 leans on the Rees-Jones gift, and the District of Columbia's total mixes national groups with a local one. Generations United, a Washington policy group, drew $200,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2022 for kinship care model dissemination, while DC KinCare Alliance, a local direct service group, drew $50,000 from the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in 2023, $55,000 in 2024, both for general operations over two years, plus $20,000 from the Cedar Hill Foundation in each of 2023 and 2024 and $20,000 from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation in 2024.

California's 10 funders favored county kinship support services. The Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation gave Pacific Clinics $25,000 in 2023, 2024 and 2025 for its Kinship Support Services Program, the Quest Foundation gave Family Support Services in Oakland $25,000 in 2023 and $35,000 in 2024 for the same kind of program, and the Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation gave OneGeneration in Van Nuys $12,000 in 2023 and $16,000 in 2024 for its grandparents as parents work.

Why the Youth List for Kinship Programs

Youth led the tagged gifts: in the October 31, 2026 pull, 29 foundations put a youth tag on their kinship grants, against 12 with a human services tag, 9 with education and 8 with health. Most funders, 68 of them, used no cause tag at all, which is normal for a field that sits between child welfare and aging. No single cause had 40 kinship funders, so Grantsights didn't build a kinship-only list. The youth list is the closest match, since a kinship program's clients are children first.

The 6 state rows above count every youth grant on 990-PF returns in Grantsights analysis of filings pulled October 29, 2026, not just kinship gifts. The free preview on the Grantsights youth funder list shows youth funders in your state broadly, not ones chosen because they backed kinship work, so read each funder's past grants before you write to it. Pricing is simple: $29 buys one state's list, $99 buys a year of every cause, and either can be refunded within 30 days. Groups that run mostly for grandparents should also read grants for senior services, since some aging funders file kinship gifts under a human services label.

What HHS Doesn't Tell You About Kinship Navigator Grants

The statute now tells HHS to reserve $10,000,000 a year for section 627 kinship navigator grants in each of fiscal years 2026 through 2029, under 42 U.S.C. 629g(b)(6). That reservation arrived with the January 2025 amendments, which also renamed section 627 from "Family connection grants" to "Kinship navigators" and dropped the old family-finding, family group decision-making and residential treatment uses, effective October 1, 2025.

Five details in the law get lost in most summaries of this grant:

1. Only 30 new grantees a year. Section 627(c)(2) caps new awards at 30 per fiscal year, so a reservation of that size means a small number of sizable awards, not many small ones.
2. You need the child welfare agency's blessing. Under 627(b)(4), a private applicant must document support from its state or local child welfare agency or explain how it'll coordinate with that agency. Get the letter months ahead.
3. Evaluation is built in. Under 627(b)(3), the application has to describe how you'll fund or feed an evaluation aimed at the federal evidence clearinghouse, or how the money will help your state move to a program it can bill under Title IV-E.
4. A navigator has a defined job. Section 627(a) requires coordination with 2-1-1 or 3-1-1 systems where they exist, a toll-free referral system linking caregivers to benefits, training and legal help, and outreach such as a kinship care website. Programs that only run support groups don't fit.
5. The state route pays half. Under 42 U.S.C. 674(a)(7), Title IV-E reimburses a state for 50% of kinship navigator spending when HHS finds the program runs in line with promising, supported or well-supported practices, whether or not the children are in foster care.

That last point explains the evaluation money in the filings. The Duke Endowment's $200,000 to Halos in 2024 paid to evaluate its kinship navigation program, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation's $115,155 in 2023 and $106,853 in 2024 to Childrens Home Inc in Tampa paid for a randomized trial of the Kin-Tech navigator. A red flag for program officers is a navigator program asking for state money with no evidence plan at all.

Kinship Guardianship Assistance and Licensing: Money for Families, Not Programs

Under 42 U.S.C. 673(d), a state's kinship guardianship assistance agreement must cover the nonrecurring costs of getting legal guardianship, up to $2,000, and the monthly payment can't exceed what the child would've received in a foster family home. To qualify, the child must generally have lived at least 6 consecutive months in the prospective relative guardian's home while eligible for foster care maintenance payments, and a child 14 or older must be consulted.

None of that money goes to your program. It's paid by the state to the relative guardian, which is why kinship legal aid matters so much to grantmakers: the family needs a lawyer to get there. The Spaulding Foundation gave the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati $20,000 in 2023 for a kinship care program providing legal support to children and non-parent caregivers, then $25,000 in 2024. In New Mexico, Pegasus Legal Services for Children drew $12,500 in 2023 and $15,000 in 2024 from the Brindle Foundation for bilingual legal services under the kinship guardianship program. More legal funders appear in the best grants for legal aid nonprofits.

Licensing changed too. According to the federal foster care program rules at 45 CFR 1355.20, a state or tribal Title IV-E agency may set one licensing or approval standard for all relative or kinship foster family homes that's different from the standard for non-relative homes. That text came from an Administration for Children and Families (ACF) rule published September 28, 2023 (88 FR 66708), and it lets relatives become licensed without meeting every requirement written for strangers. Kinship programs can help relatives through that process, and the ACF grants guide explains how the agency's larger child welfare money moves.

The Older Americans Act Route for Relatives 55 and Older

The National Family Caregiver Support Program serves older relative caregivers age 55 or older who live with and are the primary caregiver for a child, under the definition in 42 U.S.C. 3030s(a)(4). The caregiver must be a grandparent, step-grandparent or other relative who isn't the parent, raising the child because the parents can't or won't, whether through legal custody, adoption, guardianship or informally.

According to the National Family Caregiver Support Program section of the law, 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1(b), the services include information, help getting services, individual counseling, organizing support groups, caregiver training, respite care and limited supplemental services. The Administration for Community Living (ACL) page on the National Family Caregiver Support Program (opens in a new tab) says states get these grants based on their share of people 70 and older, and it lists relatives 55 and older raising children under 18 among eligible caregivers. The money goes to area agencies on aging or the groups they contract with, so a grandparent support group gets it through a local contract. Find your area agency through the Eldercare Locator (opens in a new tab) or at 1-800-677-1116, and ask whether it already funds a relatives-as-parents group. If respite is part of your plan, grants for respite care programs covers that funding in depth.

Costing a Kinship Program for a Grant Request

The pull's $20,000 median says most kinship gifts pay for a slice of a program, not the whole thing, so price each slice clearly. Many programs underestimate the legal and staff time behind each family. This table is illustrative, not data: costs vary by region, caseload and how much legal work you do in house.

Smaller funders back exactly these lines. The Max Factor Family Foundation gave Bet Tzedek in Los Angeles $25,000 in 2023 for a kinship care legal partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust gave Duet: Partners in Health and Aging in Phoenix $75,000 in both 2023 and 2024 to expand bilingual services for grandparents raising grandchildren.

6 Kinship Projects Foundations Have Paid For

All 6 of these kinship projects trace to a named grant in the Grantsights pull of October 31, 2026.

1. Launching a relatives-as-parents group. The Pallottine Foundation of Huntington gave Catholic Charities West Virginia $12,600 in 2023 to start the Relatives as Parents Program in Cabell County and serve 10 families.
2. A grandfamilies helpline. The Amelia Peabody Foundation gave Nurturing Foster Families in Orleans, Massachusetts $20,000 in 2024 for the Grandfamilies Helpline of Cape Cod and the Islands.
3. Rural kinship navigation. The Kathleen Kennedy Foundation gave High Country Caregivers Foundation in Boone, North Carolina $50,000 in 2024 for its kinship navigation program.
4. After-school help for children in kinship homes. The Dogwood Health Trust gave High Country Caregiver Foundation in Burnsville, North Carolina $105,000 in 2024 for out-of-school support and skills development for youth in kinship care.
5. Tribal kinship caregiver educators. The PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement gave the Mountain Shadow Association in Lodge Grass, Montana $25,000 in 2024 for culturally specific early childhood and kinship caregiver educators.
6. Relative caregiver support through a YWCA. The Catherine Kennedy Home Foundation gave the YWCA Grandparents' Network in Wilmington, North Carolina $25,000 in 2024 to support relative caregivers.

If your kinship families come through dependency court, grants for CASA programs covers the volunteer advocate groups that often meet them first.

Common Mistakes in Kinship Care Grant Requests

These 5 mistakes show up when a kinship program describes the system instead of the families.

• Ignoring informal caregivers. Most relatives raising children never touch the child welfare system. A common mistake is writing only about licensed kinship homes when the grandparent down the street, raising two grandkids with no court order, is the family most funders picture.
• No child welfare letter. For section 627 and most state contracts, a missing support letter from the child welfare agency is a red flag and often a disqualifier.
• Counting calls instead of outcomes. Report guardianships finished, benefits secured, school enrollments fixed and placements that held, not just phone contacts.
• Underestimating legal costs. Guardianship papers, court fees and attorney time add up, and a navigator who can't get a family to court leaves the job half done.
• Sizing asks blindly. Match your ask to the support group or legal clinic gifts a funder already makes, which how to read a 990-PF helps you find.

A Kinship Program's Funding Calendar

Use this month-by-month plan to line up federal and state timing with your foundation proposals. HHS notices and your state's child welfare budget set the real calendar, so check both first.

The Grantsights grant database tracks open federal and state notices, including child welfare and aging programs where a kinship program may apply or be a subrecipient.

Related Guides for Kinship Care Programs

These 6 guides cover partners that share your families or your funders over the next 12 months.

Kinship programs often sit inside or beside a family resource center, and grants for family resource centers lists the funders behind those hubs. Agencies that also license unrelated homes should compare notes with grants for foster care programs. Grandparents need breaks, and grants for respite care programs covers the caregiver relief money. Programs serving older relatives will find aging funders in grants for senior services.

Legal clinics should read the best grants for legal aid nonprofits, and court-connected programs can find shared funders through grants for CASA programs.

FAQ: Common Questions

How many foundations fund kinship care programs? 104 in Grantsights' search of 990-PF filings pulled October 31, 2026.

Can a nonprofit apply directly for federal kinship navigator money? Yes, through section 627 grants from HHS, which pay up to 75% of costs.

Does kinship guardianship assistance go to programs? No. The state pays the relative guardian under a written agreement.

Can the Older Americans Act pay for a grandparent support group? Yes, for relatives 55 and older, through area agencies on aging.

Why does Grantsights point kinship programs to the youth list? Youth led the tagged gifts, with 29 foundations using that tag.

What's a typical foundation grant to a kinship program? $20,000 was the median in the October 31, 2026 pull.

Sources

• GovInfo: 42 U.S.C. 627, Kinship navigators (opens in a new tab)
• GovInfo: 42 U.S.C. 629g, Discretionary grants and reservations (opens in a new tab)
• GovInfo: 42 U.S.C. 673, Adoption and guardianship assistance program (opens in a new tab)
• GovInfo: 42 U.S.C. 674, Payments to States (opens in a new tab)
• GovInfo: 42 U.S.C. 3030s, Definitions for the National Family Caregiver Support Program (opens in a new tab)
• GovInfo: 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1, Program authorized (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 45 CFR 1355.20, Definitions (opens in a new tab)
• ACL: National Family Caregiver Support Program (opens in a new tab)
• ACL: Eldercare Locator (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: About Form 990-PF (opens in a new tab)