Starbucks Foundation Grants 2026: How Nominations Work

Starbucks Foundation grants open now: 4 routes checked

Grantsights checked 4 Starbucks Foundation giving routes and its latest return on November 10, 2026. None takes an application from an organization.

On the return: the FY2025 Form 990-PF checks the Part XIV box saying the Foundation "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds," and it leaves the application contact, format and deadline lines blank.

Our honest read: unless a Starbucks partner already volunteers with or cares about your organization, there's no Starbucks Foundation door to knock on. The old starbucksfoundation.org address didn't resolve when Grantsights tried it.

How Neighborhood Grants work: the nomination route

Neighborhood Grants are the only Starbucks Foundation money most local nonprofits can realistically reach, and they're small. According to the Foundation's Neighborhood Grants page (captured July 13, 2026), the Foundation invites partners to nominate local grassroots, community-led nonprofits in their communities, and that in 2026, the program's seventh year, it awarded over $4 million to more than 2,700 organizations across North America.

The July 9, 2026 announcement by Kelly Goodejohn, executive director of The Starbucks Foundation, says partners nominate organizations they know, often through volunteering or personal giving, and explain why each one matters; those nominations help the Foundation pick grantees. The same page counts the program's whole run: partners and Starbucks alumni have made more than 210,000 nominations since 2019, leading to over 19,000 grants worth more than $30 million. That's about 11 nominations for every grant awarded.

The June 2024 recipient list says grants go to eligible US 501(c)(3) nonprofits and Canadian registered charities. Grantsights counted about 2,750 recipient lines on that list, about 2,420 in the US and 330 in Canada. The states with the most recipients were California (366), Texas (296), Washington (189) and New York (159), with Ontario (174) leading Canada. That tracks where Starbucks has stores and partners, so a town with several Starbucks stores has more potential nominators than a town with none.

What to do if you want a Neighborhood Grant

1. Find the partners who already know you. Volunteers, donors and clients of your program who work at a nearby Starbucks are the people who can nominate you. The Foundation's pages describe nominations tied to partners' own volunteering and giving.
2. Make your 501(c)(3) or Canadian charity status easy to confirm. The 2024 list says only eligible 501(c)(3)s and registered Canadian charities receive grants. If your status is in doubt, read the IRS summary of what a 501(c)(3) must do to stay exempt (opens in a new tab) before a partner puts your name forward.
3. Don't ask the store for a grant application. There isn't one. A partner nominates through Starbucks' internal process; the Foundation's pages don't describe any form an organization can fill in.
4. Keep the ask in proportion. With an average near $1,500, a Neighborhood Grant suits a food drive, supplies or a small program cost, not a salary or a building.

Common mistake: emailing The Starbucks Foundation a proposal. The return says it doesn't accept unsolicited requests, and its pages list no proposal address.

Who actually gets the Starbucks Foundation's larger grants

According to our analysis of the FY2025 return, the Foundation paid 33 named grants worth $8,270,849 after the intermediary payments come out, with a median of $150,000. The five largest took 51% of that money. None of the roughly 2,700 Neighborhood Grant recipients appears by name on the return: the Foundation's grant list shows only large, mostly national and international partners and the four intermediaries.

Every one of the 37 lines on the return gives the same purpose, "Thriving Communities & Disaster Response," so the return doesn't split the money by program.

The largest FY2025 grants

For example, Mercy Corps received $1,000,000 in FY2025 after $2,150,000 the year before, and its CEO is quoted on the Foundation's own page describing a "longstanding" partnership. Disaster partners named on the Foundation's disaster relief page, the American Red Cross and World Central Kitchen, received $1,548,000 between them.

The Seattle hometown grants

One organization in Seattle, Mary's Place, received $150,000 in FY2025, the largest local grant in the company's hometown. According to the FY2025 return data, Washington recipients got 7 grants worth $665,000: Days for Girls International in Bellingham ($175,000), Mary's Place ($150,000), FareStart ($135,000), Wellspring Family Services ($100,000), YWCA Seattle King Snohomish ($60,000), YouthCare ($25,000) and Junior Achievement of Washington ($20,000). Every one of them except Mary's Place was also funded the year before.

Where the money went by state

Addresses mislead here, as they do for most corporate foundations: DC, Massachusetts and Oregon lead because the Red Cross, Junior Achievement Worldwide and Mercy Corps have headquarters there, not because the Foundation favors those states.

Starbucks Foundation grants outside the US: 2 routes, both by invitation

Two of the Foundation's 4 priorities point abroad, and neither is open to a US nonprofit applying on its own.

Global Community Impact Grants. The Foundation's October 25, 2024 story says it invites the licensees that run Starbucks stores in Asia Pacific; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Latin America and the Caribbean to nominate local nonprofits. By then the program had awarded more than $10 million to over 150 nonprofits across 60 markets, and in 2024 alone over $3.3 million to more than 80 nonprofits in 46 markets, counting both grants and co-investment from the markets. More than half of Starbucks' global markets had nominated at least once. If your organization works in a country where a licensee runs Starbucks stores, that licensee's community team is the contact, not the Foundation.

Origin Grants. The Foundation's page, captured November 1, 2026, lists a commitment to positively affect 1 million women and girls in coffee- and tea-growing communities by 2030. The page links to the 2022 announcement but posts no application.

The FY2025 return doesn't tie any grant to either program; every line carries the same purpose. Grantsights found international development groups throughout the list, including Mercy Corps, CARE, Planet Water Foundation, Days for Girls International, Save the Children and Lutheran World Relief, but couldn't confirm which of their grants count toward origin communities. Groups doing similar work should read the grants for clean water guide for funders that publish an application.

What the Starbucks Foundation's Pages Don't Tell You

Grantsights checked the Foundation's pages against its FY2024 and FY2025 returns. Five things stand out.

1. About half the money goes through intermediaries. In FY2025, $8,983,585 of $17,254,434 (52%) went to Fidelity Charitable, Myriad USA, the Vancouver Foundation and ImpactAssets. The return doesn't say what those payments funded. The Foundation's pages don't say which intermediary pays Neighborhood Grants, but since none of those thousands of local grantees appears on the return by name, the money must reach them some other way.

2. Giving fell in FY2025. The return shows $17,254,434 paid, down from $23,584,031 the year before, and 37 grant lines instead of 73. The fair market value of the Foundation's assets was $20,890,653 at the end of FY2025. Don't underestimate how much a single year can swing for a corporate foundation that depends on company gifts.

3. Repeat partners hold most slots. Of the 33 named grantees in FY2025, 25 were also paid in FY2024. Newcomers included Team Rubicon ($100,000), World Relief ($330,000) and Junior Achievement Worldwide ($1,050,000).

4. Next year's money is partly spoken for. The return lists $4,020,125 approved for future payment, a red flag for anyone hoping to be a new large grantee: roughly a quarter of a year's giving is already committed.

5. Neighborhood Grants follow the store map. Nominations come from partners, so the grants cluster where Starbucks has stores. California, Texas and Washington had the most 2024 recipients. A rural nonprofit far from a Starbucks has little chance at this program, however strong its work.

Is a Starbucks Foundation grant worth your time? A 4-question check

1. Does a Starbucks partner volunteer with, donate to or use your program? If not, a Neighborhood Grant is unlikely.
2. Is a grant of about $1,500 useful to you? That's the typical Neighborhood Grant.
3. Are you a national or global group in disaster relief, youth workforce or origin-community development? Those fields get the larger grants, but only by invitation.
4. Are you in Seattle? The Foundation's hometown grants exist, but in FY2025 there were only 7 in Washington.

Plausible fit: a neighborhood food pantry where two baristas from the store down the street volunteer every week. Poor fit: a new arts nonprofit with no Starbucks connection hoping for a $50,000 grant.

Where to look instead of the Starbucks Foundation

A nomination you can't request isn't a fundraising plan, so put proposal hours into funders that publish an application. The guide to corporate grants for nonprofits sorts company giving programs by whether they take requests.

Store-level corporate giving: Walmart's Spark Good Local Grants are the closest open match: small grants that organizations apply for themselves through a local store, unlike Starbucks' partner nominations. Target's grants split into store-led funds and an invitation-heavy foundation, a structure much like Starbucks'. And the Chick-fil-A grants guide explains how local restaurant operators decide donations, another route that starts with a relationship at a nearby location.

By cause: grants for community projects, grants for youth programs, grants for food banks and the best grants for disaster relief nonprofits cover the causes Starbucks funds most.

Seattle and Washington: the Seattle grants guide and Washington nonprofit grants cover local funders. According to the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, its Neighborhood Matching Fund (opens in a new tab) offers Community Partnership Fund awards of up to $50,000 twice a year and Small Sparks Fund awards of up to $5,000 on a rolling basis for most of the year, and every award is matched by the community through volunteer time, donated materials, services or cash. Unlike Neighborhood Grants, community groups apply for it directly.

Finding funders that do take requests: the Grantsights community funder lists sort private foundations by cause and state using what each one actually paid on its 990-PF, and the preview for your own state is free. The Starbucks Foundation's funder page summarizes its last three returns. Government programs with set deadlines are searchable in the grant database.

How Grantsights Checked This Guide

Grantsights checked 6 Starbucks pages and documents and 2 returns on November 10, 2026. ProPublica's records show The Starbucks Foundation in Seattle under EIN 91-1795425, filing a 990-PF on a fiscal year that ends September 30. Because about.starbucks.com blocked automated requests, Grantsights read the Internet Archive's captures of Starbucks' own pages; the dates below are the capture or publication dates.

Anyone can check these numbers, since every private foundation files its grant list with the IRS. According to IRS guidance on the private foundation annual return (opens in a new tab), Form 990-PF is due by the 15th day of the 5th month after the foundation's year ends, which for a September 30 year end means February 15; this Foundation's FY2025 return was submitted in August 2026, according to the e-file record. Grantsights' walkthrough of how to read a 990-PF shows where Part XIV and the future-payment list sit.

Sources

• Starbucks: The Starbucks Foundation (opens in a new tab)
• Starbucks: Neighborhood Grants (opens in a new tab)
• Starbucks: How Starbucks partners strengthen communities through Neighborhood Grants (July 9, 2026) (opens in a new tab)
• The Starbucks Foundation: 2024 Neighborhood Grants recipients (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• Starbucks: Global Community Impact Grants (opens in a new tab)
• Starbucks: Our support for disaster relief (opens in a new tab)
• Starbucks: 2025 Impact Report announcement (July 1, 2026) (opens in a new tab)
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: The Starbucks Foundation filings (opens in a new tab)
• City of Seattle: Neighborhood Matching Fund (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Exemption Requirements for 501(c)(3) Organizations (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Private Foundation Annual Return (opens in a new tab)