Grants for Churches in Illinois (2026 Guide)

For the national picture, including federal rules and how church grants work in general, start with our grants for churches guide. This page covers what's specific to Illinois. For programs beyond churches, see the Illinois grants guide and Illinois nonprofit grants.

Foundation Grants to Illinois Churches by the Numbers

Illinois churches and ministries received 2,657 foundation grants from 1,530 foundations, according to Grantsights analysis of Form 990-PF grant records. The funder and recipient counts are close: 1,530 foundations and 1,640 recipients.

Illinois funders are more loyal than most. Nationally, 60% of foundations that gave to churches gave to just one recipient. In Illinois it's 73%. That's a red flag for any church planning a cold mailing to every foundation with a church grant on file: nearly three out of four Illinois funders look like family or member foundations giving to the congregation they belong to. The 176 foundations that funded 3 or more Illinois churches or ministries are the realistic first prospects.

Plan around the median, not the total. The $51.9 million total includes a few very large gifts, the biggest about $1.3 million. The median grant was $5,000, and 83% of grants were under $25,000. A typical Illinois foundation gift pays for a program season or part of a repair, not a capital campaign.

What the purposes say, and don't. Purpose lines are mostly vague ("general support," "charitable," or blank), so keyword counts are a rough floor. Among the 2,657 grants, 74 named youth work, 40 named food, and 36 named building, repair, or capital work. Youth ministry shows up about twice as often as food or buildings, which fits suburban family foundations that give to the youth programs of their own congregations.

You can see how many foundations gave to churches in Illinois for free, with two of them named and one shown in full. The full Grantsights church funder list costs $29. For Illinois and every other state, it names each foundation that reported church and ministry grants on its own IRS Form 990-PF filings: what it gave, to which church or ministry, for what, and a link to its filings. That's one payment, no subscription, with a 30-day refund if it doesn't help.

Where Illinois Church Grants Go

Six cities hold 1,050 of the state's 2,657 church grants, about 40%, according to our analysis of the same filings. Chicago alone has 804.

Three of the six, Lake Forest, Glencoe, and Northbrook, are North Shore suburbs with high household wealth, and Wheaton is home to a large cluster of evangelical ministries. Those four cities together hold 193 grants, more than three times Rockford's 53, even though Rockford is a larger city. A church downstate, in Peoria, Springfield, or the Metro East, is working with a much thinner pool of local foundation money. That makes the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois, the United Methodist conference funds, and the federal programs below more important outside the Chicago area.

How to Use the $29 List in Illinois

The list covers every one of the 1,530 Illinois foundations above, and every other state. Three ways to use it here:

1. Sort by recipient count first. Start with the 176 foundations that gave to 3 or more Illinois churches or ministries. A funder with one gift to one parish is almost always a family tie.
2. Match the suburb. A Glencoe or Lake Forest family foundation that gave to four North Shore congregations is a better lead for a Highland Park church than a Chicago funder with one gift on the South Side.
3. Check whether the foundation accepts applications. On the 990-PF, a foundation that checks the box for "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations" doesn't want a proposal. Skip it.

Our guide to foundations that give grants to churches walks through a 990-PF line by line and includes a sample letter of inquiry.

The Illinois Constitution and Public Money for Churches

Illinois has one of the most sweeping no-aid clauses in any state constitution. Grantsights read Article X on the Illinois General Assembly's constitution page (opens in a new tab) on October 17, 2026. Article X, Section 3, headed "Public Funds for Sectarian Purposes Forbidden," says:

"Neither the General Assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian purpose ... nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the State, or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian purpose."

It covers every level of government, from the state down to townships and school districts, and it names "any church" twice.

The state's own religious freedom law sidesteps it. The Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act (opens in a new tab), at 775 ILCS 35/25, says the Act doesn't "affect, interpret, or in any way address" Article X, Section 3, and that granting government funding "to the extent permissible" under that clause doesn't violate the Act.

What the U.S. Supreme Court has added. In Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (opens in a new tab) (2017), the Court held that Missouri couldn't deny a church preschool a playground resurfacing grant because it was a church. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (opens in a new tab) (2020) held that a state no-aid clause can't be used to exclude religious schools from a program open to other private schools, and Carson v. Makin (opens in a new tab) (2022) applied that rule again. Together, they limit how Illinois could use Section 3 to keep a church out of a program open to other nonprofits only because it's a church. They don't require a state to pay for worship or religious instruction.

Grantsights didn't find an Illinois court decision or Illinois Attorney General opinion applying those cases to Article X, Section 3 as of October 17, 2026. So this guide won't predict how a specific state grant to a church would be treated.

What happens in practice. Illinois agencies do fund religious organizations through programs open to all eligible nonprofits. The state-funded NSGP-IL security program, below, lists Chabad of Oak Park among its active $150,000 awards in the state grant catalog (opens in a new tab). Federal money that Illinois agencies pass through, such as NSGP, TEFAP, and EFSP, follows federal rules, which let churches take part but bar spending on worship, religious instruction, or proselytizing. Our guide to government grants for churches explains those federal limits.

Security Grants for Illinois Churches

Illinois received $22.1 million in FEMA Nonprofit Security Grant Program obligations in FY2025 and $24.6 million in FY2024, according to USAspending.gov (opens in a new tab) data for Assistance Listing 97.008. That's far more than most states, largely because the Chicago area qualifies for the urban stream.

The federal NSGP, two streams. IEMA-OHS is the State Administrative Agency. It runs one stream for organizations in Cook County, the NSGP urban area page (opens in a new tab), and one for every other county, the NSGP state page (opens in a new tab). For FY2026, IEMA-OHS received FEMA's funding notice on June 24, 2026, and applications were due at 5:00 p.m. Central on July 6, 2026. Per FEMA's FY2026 rules, awards run up to $200,000 per site, for up to 3 sites per stream. FEMA's scoring names ideology-based, spiritual, and religious organizations, and contracted security staff and cybersecurity are allowed uses.

A common mistake is waiting for the funding notice to start. Twelve days from notice to deadline isn't enough time to get a vulnerability assessment, write an Investment Justification, and line up contractor quotes. Illinois churches that want the FY2027 round should do that work this winter.

IEMA-OHS's general NSGP page notes that churches, mosques, and synagogues are automatically tax-exempt and don't have to provide an IRS determination letter. That page still refers to the FY2022 round, so confirm the current notice's wording before relying on it.

NSGP-IL, the state-funded program. Illinois also has its own Not-for-Profit Security Grant Program (opens in a new tab), created at 20 ILCS 3305/17.8. The latest round posted, for state fiscal year 2025, offered up to $150,000 per site and $450,000 per organization for 501(c)(3)s at high risk of terrorism, with applications due August 1, 2025, and a 36-month performance period. The state grant catalog lists $20 million for the program in FY2023 and $20 million in FY2025.

The 2026 picture is less clear. Two bills that would have appropriated $18 million each, HB4310 (opens in a new tab) and SB2848, stalled in committee in July 2026, and the catalog showed no open funding notice on October 17, 2026. Grantsights couldn't confirm whether the enacted FY2027 budget funds a new round. Watch the NSGP-IL page rather than assuming one is coming.

Our church security grants guide explains the federal application, including the Investment Justification.

Historic Preservation: What Illinois Offers a Church Building

Illinois's state preservation office doesn't run a grant a church can apply for directly. Its Certified Local Government grants (opens in a new tab) go only to the 81 certified local governments, need a 30% match, and pay for surveys, planning, education, and National Register nominations. The page says construction projects to restore or rehabilitate public or private property aren't eligible.

The tax incentives don't fit most churches either.

A church that owns its building and worships in it gets nothing from the 25% credit. The case where it can matter is a reuse deal: a congregation with a closed school or convent that partners with a developer to turn it into apartments. The state credit's scoring even gives priority to projects with a 501(c)(3) in the development partnership.

Landmarks Illinois is the practical route. The statewide nonprofit runs three small grant programs. Grantsights checked each on October 17, 2026:

• Preservation Heritage Fund (opens in a new tab): $500 to $5,000, matched, for engineering and feasibility studies, stabilization, legal services, and National Register nominations for threatened buildings. Deadlines are April 1 and October 1, so the next one is April 1, 2027.
• Donnelley Fund: $500 to $2,500 for planning and education, same April 1 and October 1 deadlines.
• Timuel D. Black Jr. Fund (opens in a new tab): $500 to $10,000 at a 3:1 match, for Chicago South Side community areas only. Its guidelines name "faith-based and educational institutions" as eligible. Deadlines are January 1 and July 1, and the page says the next round will open soon.

A $5,000 engineering study won't fix a roof, but it's often what a church needs first, because larger funders such as the National Fund for Sacred Places want a conditions assessment before they'll talk. Our church building repair grants guide covers the national preservation funders.

Food: TEFAP, Illinois Food Banks, and EFSP

Illinois runs TEFAP through 7 food banks that together cover all 102 counties, according to the state grant catalog entry for TEFAP (opens in a new tab). The Illinois Department of Human Services is the state agency, and its TEFAP page (opens in a new tab) sets household eligibility at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, by verbal self-attestation.

Feeding Illinois (opens in a new tab), the state association of those food banks, says its members work with more than 2,600 pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters. Three of the 7 are headquartered outside Illinois: River Bend in Davenport, Iowa; the St. Louis Area Foodbank; and Tri-State in Evansville, Indiana. A church in Rock Island, the Metro East, or the far south of the state should check which food bank actually serves its county before calling.

IDHS also runs a TANF Food Purchase Program that gives the TEFAP food banks extra money for kid-friendly food. Grantsights didn't find a separate state-funded grant that goes to church pantries directly. According to USDA rules for TEFAP, a church can host a distribution, but prayer or worship can't be part of it, and households can't be asked to attend a service.

EFSP money. Illinois's Emergency Food and Shelter Program allocation for Phase 43 (FY2025) is $4,753,496, down from $5,730,451 in Phase 42, according to the EFSP National Board's Phase 43 allocation table (opens in a new tab). The largest local allocations:

A case in point on the set-aside: it rose from $89,910 in Phase 42 to $208,917 in Phase 43, while the number of qualifying local jurisdictions fell from 71 to 65. A church in a county that dropped off the local list should ask the Illinois State Set-Aside Committee about applying. Local Boards, usually convened by the local United Way, choose which nonprofits get the money. The National Board's latest news page (opens in a new tab) said local board plans and official Phase 43 awards were still pending on October 17, 2026, and the site now requires multi-factor login.

Our church food pantry grants guide covers the recordkeeping TEFAP and EFSP require.

Community Foundations and Denominational Funds in Illinois

Five of the six Illinois funders below accept faith-based applicants for some purposes. Grantsights checked each on its own site on October 17, 2026.

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago also funds its own congregations. Its 2026 Vitality Grants totaled $275,000 to 18 congregations, mostly $5,000 to $20,000 each, and Episcopal Charities' Parish Partner page is now inviting applications for 2027-2028, with no amount or deadline posted on October 17, 2026.

Our view: for most Illinois congregations, the denominational fund is the best first grant. It's the only funder on this list that's built to give to a congregation directly, and the application is short. The community foundations come next, and nearly all of them will want a separately incorporated ministry with its own 501(c)(3) for anything bigger than a small program grant.

What Illinois Church Grant Lists Don't Tell You

Most "Illinois church grants" lists repeat national foundations and closed federal programs. Five things they leave out:

1. The constitution is strict on paper. Article X, Section 3 bars "any grant or donation" of money to any church. Federal cases limit how it can be used to exclude churches from open programs, but no Illinois court has said how, so state-funded programs carry more legal uncertainty here than in states like North Carolina.
2. Nearly three-quarters of Illinois funders give to one church. At 73%, Illinois is well above the 60% national rate. Mass mailings mostly reach foundations that will never answer.
3. The state preservation office has no church grant. Its grants go to local governments, and its tax credits need an income-producing building. Landmarks Illinois is the realistic preservation funder.
4. The security deadline comes fast. FY2026 applications were due 12 days after Illinois received FEMA's notice. Churches that wait for the announcement usually underestimate how long the assessment takes.
5. NSGP-IL may not have a 2026 round. The state program paid $150,000 awards in past rounds, but the 2026 funding bills stalled. Don't build a security budget around it.

A 90-Day Plan for an Illinois Church

1. Weeks 1 and 2: paperwork. Gather your IRS status evidence (a denominational group exemption letter often works), articles of incorporation, board list, and a recent financial statement. If you run a pantry or after-school program, decide whether it should be a separate nonprofit.
2. Weeks 3 and 4: registrations. Get a UEI through SAM.gov, which NSGP and EFSP now check. Our SAM.gov registration guide covers the steps.
3. Weeks 5 to 8: three routes. For most churches, that's a short list of multi-church foundations from the 990-PF data, one denominational fund, and either the food bank or the security program.
4. Weeks 9 to 12: draft. Write two-page letters of inquiry for foundations, request a vulnerability assessment for the FY2027 NSGP round, or get an engineer's report for a Landmarks Illinois application due April 1, 2027.

To see what else your organization may qualify for, try the free eligibility checker, or pick a route by project type on our church grant path index.

Illinois congregations can compare our church grant guides for neighboring Midwest states, Michigan and Ohio, built on the same foundation data.

Limits of This Data

These counts include only the foundations in the Grantsights dataset, and 990-PF filings arrive a year or more after grants are paid. Purpose lines are often blank or vague, so the youth, food, and building counts are a floor, not a full count. Name-based matching misses churches recorded under other names, such as a congregation listed only by a saint's name or as a "temple" or "assembly." Program dates and amounts above were current on October 17, 2026 and can change.

Sources Checked

All sources were checked on October 17, 2026:

• Illinois Constitution, Article X (opens in a new tab), Section 3; Religious Freedom Restoration Act (opens in a new tab), 775 ILCS 35/25
• Illinois State Historic Preservation Office: CLG grants (opens in a new tab), Illinois Historic Tax Credit (opens in a new tab), River Edge credit, federal credit, and assessment freeze (opens in a new tab)
• IEMA-OHS: NSGP urban area (Cook County) (opens in a new tab), NSGP state (outside Cook) (opens in a new tab), and NSGP-IL (opens in a new tab); state grant catalog, CSFA 3019 (opens in a new tab); HB4310 and SB2848 bill status
• USAspending.gov (opens in a new tab), Assistance Listing 97.008, Illinois, FY2024 and FY2025
• IDHS TEFAP page (opens in a new tab) and state catalog entry (opens in a new tab); Feeding Illinois (opens in a new tab)
• EFSP National Board: Phase 43 allocations (opens in a new tab), Phase 42 allocations, and latest news (opens in a new tab)
• Landmarks Illinois: Preservation Heritage Fund, Donnelley Fund, and Timuel D. Black Jr. Fund pages and guidelines
• Funder guidelines on their own sites: Community Foundation of Northern Illinois, DuPage Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, ELCA Metropolitan Chicago Synod, Northern Illinois Conference and Illinois Great Rivers Conference of the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and Episcopal Charities
• Supreme Court opinions: Trinity Lutheran (opens in a new tab), Espinoza (opens in a new tab), Carson (opens in a new tab)
• Grantsights analysis of Form 990-PF grant records, as of October 2026