Target Grants 2026: What's Open and Who Can Apply

Target grants open now: 7 routes checked

Grantsights checked 7 possible routes on November 6, 2026. Two take requests today, but neither is a cash grant cycle. The table shows each one and its status on that date.

Recently closed: CEF Cycle 2 (August 3 to September 4, 2026; decisions in November 2026), CEF Cycle 1 (April 6 to May 6, 2026; decisions in July 2026) and the 2026 Hometown cycle.

Ended: Target Field Trip Grants. No Target page offers them now (details below).

Our reading: for most organizations outside Minnesota, the best bet is a CEF award of a few thousand dollars, and the next chance to apply is April 2027. The Target Foundation's bigger grants go to Minnesota nonprofits through Hometown or to national and global groups the foundation picks.

Target Foundation vs. Target's company giving: 2 different budgets

The money behind Target grants comes from 2 places, and they follow different rules. The Target Foundation charter (opens in a new tab) describes the foundation as "a wholly independent entity, legally structured as a separate 501(c)(3)," with a role separate from the corporation. It runs the Hometown, National and Global programs and files a Form 990-PF each year.

Everything else on Target's Corporate Giving pages is company giving. According to the Community Engagement Funds program page, CEF lets Target store and distribution center leaders make the local giving decisions. Target Circle grants are awarded by Target based on guest votes, and gift card donations come from local stores.

Target's Serving and Strengthening Communities page (opens in a new tab) says that since 1946 the company has given 5% of its profits to communities in products, cash and through the Target Foundation, calculated on the average of the prior 3 years of pre-tax profits. The same page lists $458 million in products and cash donated through Target and the Target Foundation, without naming the year. According to Target's Twin Cities page (opens in a new tab), Target and the Target Foundation gave over $32 million in product and cash in the Twin Cities in 2024.

Those company totals include merchandise, food donations and guest-directed giving. None of them is a pool you can apply to directly, and the foundation's grants are a small slice: $23.1 million in its fiscal year ended February 1, 2025.

Eligibility baseline. The Target Foundation page (opens in a new tab) says that to request a charitable contribution, an organization must be a 501(c)(3), an accredited school or a public agency in the United States or a U.S. protectorate. A public agency must show a government affirmation letter or a valid NCES number. The same page says "the majority of Target grants are by invitation only." If you need to confirm what 501(c)(3) status means, the IRS page on 501(c)(3) exemption requirements (opens in a new tab) explains it.

Who actually gets Target Foundation grants

Grantsights analysis of the grant list on the Target Foundation's latest 990-PF, for the year February 4, 2024 to February 1, 2025, found 125 grants totaling $23,075,000, to 123 distinct recipients in 14 states and Washington, D.C. That matches the $23,075,000 the return reports as grants paid. The median grant was $100,000 and the mean was $184,600. No grant was an employee matching or employee-directed gift, so nothing was removed. The year before (January 29, 2023 to February 3, 2024), the foundation paid 138 grants totaling $27,255,000, with a median of $125,000.

Grant sizes

Half the grants, and about half the dollars, sat between $100,000 and $499,999. Only 1 grant came in under $25,000, which matches the Hometown guidelines' $25,000 floor.

Program mix

Every grant purpose on the filing starts with "Economic Opportunity," followed by a program name. Grantsights grouped the filed purpose lines into the foundation's 3 programs:

Hometown had 77% of the grants but about 41% of the dollars. National and Global had fewer, larger grants, and their pages say they're invitation only.

Where the money went

According to the Target Foundation's return, Minnesota recipients took 97 grants and $9,825,000, or 43% of dollars. New York (8 grants, $3,900,000), California (5, $2,600,000), Virginia (3, $1,500,000) and Washington, D.C. (2, $1,500,000) followed. Virginia's total is 3 grants to CAF America in Alexandria, filed as Global grants.

One caution on state counts: the prior year's return lists New Mexico Community Capital, based in Albuquerque, with a Minnesota state code, so read state totals from these filings as close, not exact.

Named recipients, year ended February 1, 2025

• Common Future, San Francisco: $750,000 (National)
• First Nations Development Institute, Longmont, Colorado: $750,000 (National)
• PolicyLink, Oakland, California: $600,000 (National, Ecosystem)
• Prosperity Now, Washington, D.C.: $500,000 (National)
• Mission Asset Fund, San Francisco: $500,000 (National)
• The Acumen Fund, New York: $1,000,000 (Global)
• Issara Institute, Vaughn, Washington: $1,000,000 (Global)
• Northside Economic Opportunity Network, Minneapolis: $200,000 (Hometown)
• Greater Twin Cities United Way: $150,000 (Hometown)

The small end looks very different. One nonprofit in Slayton, Minnesota, Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, received $25,000 under Hometown. Habitat for Humanity of Minnesota, Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation and Wildflyer Coffee each received $25,000 too. The only grant under $25,000 was $15,000 to COPAL (Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina) in Minneapolis. In the prior year, the largest single grant was $1,500,000 to the Minnesota Black Collective Foundation (Hometown, Ecosystem).

You can see the foundation's public summary on Grantsights' Target Foundation funder page.

Target Foundation Hometown grants: the spring 2027 checklist

Hometown is the only Target Foundation program with a published application cycle, and it covers Minnesota only. According to the Hometown program guidelines, grants are made only to organizations based in Minnesota, with priority for the Twin Cities' 7-county metro area and for organizations with annual budgets under $5 million. Estimated grant size runs from $25,000 to $200,000.

The Hometown funding guidelines (opens in a new tab) name 4 priority areas:

1. Entrepreneurship and small business: training and technical assistance, financial services, loans or grants for entrepreneurs, and network building.
2. Workforce development: career pathways, job training and skills development for unemployed and underemployed people.
3. Housing: affordable housing, fair and just housing (eviction prevention and tenant rights), and sustainable homeownership.
4. Asset building: financial education and financial supports and services.

The guidelines also say the foundation will prioritize groups that strengthen networks, coalitions and movements, and frontline direct-service groups serving communities with low incomes. They exclude grants to individuals, religious organizations for religious purposes, sponsorships or fundraising events, direct political lobbying, endowments or capital requests, and government entities.

What to do before spring 2027:

• Check that your work fits 1 of the 4 priority areas in plain terms. A food shelf or youth arts program without a jobs, housing, small business or financial-health angle is a weak fit.
• Pull your most recent budget. Under $5 million gets priority.
• Look at the Hometown grantees on the foundation's latest 990-PF for groups like yours. Neighborhood associations, community development corporations, housing partnerships and small business lenders all show up.
• Bookmark the Hometown page (opens in a new tab). It said "check back in Spring 2027" on November 6, 2026, but gave no date.

The page didn't name an application platform while the cycle was closed, so don't sign up for a portal on a guess.

How to apply for Target's local grants, step by step

Three Target routes accept organizations without an invitation. Here's how each one works, from Target's own pages.

1. Community Engagement Funds ($1,000 to $15,000)

1. Check eligibility. You must be a 501(c)(3) public charity with current tax-exempt status, or a K-12 public or nonprofit private school, charter school, community or junior college, or college or university with an NCES number. Public schools can look up their ID in the NCES public school search (opens in a new tab); private schools can use the NCES private school search (opens in a new tab).
2. Match a focus area. The CEF page lists 4: basic needs and youth development; community vitalization and community and green spaces; cultural partnerships and creative programming; and workforce development.
3. Pick a cycle. In 2026, Cycle 1 ran April 6 to May 6 with decisions in July, and Cycle 2 ran August 3 to September 4 with decisions in November. The page encourages applicants to choose the cycle that fits their program timing.
4. Watch the limits. A program funded in Cycle 1 can't apply again in Cycle 2, and an organization can have at most 10 applications in at any time.
5. Apply in April 2027. The page says "Please return in April 2027 for Cycle 1 applications." It didn't name an application system or post 2027 dates on November 6, 2026.

2. Store gift card donations (up to $500 a year)

According to the GiftCard request form (opens in a new tab), 501(c)(3) nonprofits and accredited schools can ask a local store for a donation. Fill out the form completely, print it, and bring it to your Target store with a government affirmation letter or other IRS letter. The form asks for your EIN or 12-digit NCES ID and an explanation of how you'll use the card. Donations run February through December as funding permits, average $25 to $50, and top out at $500 a year per organization. Cards arrive as electronic gift cards by email, Target doesn't donate merchandise, and stores typically take up to 30 days to answer.

3. Target Circle Community Giving (guest-voted grants)

Target Circle members earn a vote for each Target trip and direct grants to participating nonprofits; when a voting period ends, Target splits the grants by share of votes. According to the Target Circle program page, guests help direct $7 million of Target's giving each year, and guests had directed $42 million through 2025, reaching 7,950 nonprofits. Target says it works with 2 partners, in/PACT and Simple Generosity, to research and select participating nonprofits.

To be considered, complete Simple Generosity's nonprofit partner questionnaire (opens in a new tab). That page says to create an account and search for your organization by EIN; if you're already in its system, you're in the pool of potential grantees and don't need to do anything else. Being in the pool doesn't guarantee a spot on the ballot, and neither page says how often new partners are chosen.

What Target's Grant Pages Don't Tell You

Grantsights compared Target's Corporate Giving pages with the foundation's program pages and the grant lists on its 2 most recent 990-PF returns. These 6 points aren't spelled out anywhere on Target's site.

The small local grants aren't in the foundation's filing. The 990-PF's smallest grant was $15,000 and only 1 fell below $25,000. CEF awards of $1,000 to $15,000, Target Circle grants and gift cards come from the company side, so the foundation's grant list won't show you who won a CEF award. Don't use the 990-PF to judge your CEF odds.

Hometown is where the foundation's open door is, and it's Minnesota only. National and Global, which together paid $13.5 million in the year ended February 1, 2025, are invitation only. A common mistake is sending a national workforce or financial-coaching proposal to the foundation because its focus matches. Without an invitation, there's no route in.

"Ecosystem" grants are a separate pattern. 17 grants worth $3,370,000 carried an "Ecosystem" label in the latest return, including $600,000 to PolicyLink and grants to intermediaries such as Propel Nonprofits, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and Third Sector New England. Our reading is that these support the networks and funders around a field rather than direct services. Few direct-service applicants will fit that line.

Most of the money goes back to last year's grantees. Grantsights compared the 2 most recent returns: 74 of the 123 recipients in the year ended February 1, 2025 had also received a grant the year before, and they took $9,845,000, or 43% of dollars. The earlier return also marked 4 grants as "FY22 commitments." Expect current grantees to hold much of each year's money, and underestimate that at your peril if you're a first-time Hometown applicant.

CEF doesn't publish a store-distance rule or a list of winners. The page says store and distribution center leaders make the decisions, but it doesn't say how close you must be to a store, how many awards each store makes, or who won. That makes it a red flag to budget a CEF award as certain: treat it as one of several small requests.

The calendar is short. Each 2026 CEF window lasted about a month, and Hometown gave only a season ("spring 2027") for its next cycle. Organizations that underestimate how quickly these close can miss a whole year. Set a reminder for early April 2027 and have your 501(c)(3) letter or NCES ID, budget and program description ready before then.

What happened to Target Field Trip Grants

Target Field Trip Grants were a well-known Target grant for schools, and many teachers still search for them. On November 6, 2026, the old address target.com/fieldtrips redirected to Target's Corporate Giving page, which mentions Community Engagement Funds, Target Circle and gift cards but not field trips. Two older field trip grant addresses on corporate.target.com returned page-not-found errors. None of the 12 Target pages Grantsights checked mentioned a field trip program.

The program appears to have ended. If you're a teacher or school leader, the closest Target routes are:

• CEF, open to K-12 schools with an NCES number, next window April 2027. A school program would need to fit 1 of the 4 focus areas, such as youth development.
• A store gift card donation, open to accredited schools, up to $500 a year.

For field trips and classroom projects you can fund this school year, see grants for teachers and schools and grants for after-school programs. Many school districts also run education foundations; grants for school foundations explains how they raise and give money.

Where to look instead of Target

If none of Target's 7 routes fits this year, put the time into funders with published deadlines. Corporate and bank foundations with similar workforce and financial-health interests often run open cycles; corporate grants for nonprofits lists them, and the Wells Fargo Foundation and Truist Foundation are two of the closest matches.

For Minnesota nonprofits, start with Minnesota nonprofit grants, which covers state agencies and large Minnesota foundations, and the Minnesota grants guide. Small business support groups should see Minnesota small business grants.

For workforce and job training groups, grants for workforce training and the best grants for workforce development nonprofits list federal and foundation programs with deadlines.

For financial coaching, housing and asset building, see grants for financial literacy programs, grants for affordable housing and grants for community development corporations. These match the National and Hometown priorities most closely.

For local, smaller requests, your community foundation and local United Way usually run yearly cycles in the same range as CEF.

To find foundations that already fund work like yours, Grantsights' human services funder list groups foundations by cause and state using the grants they reported on their 990-PF filings, and you can preview your own state free. Search open grants for current deadlines, and read how to research foundation grants before you write to any funder. The IRS private foundation annual return page (opens in a new tab) explains that a 990-PF is due by the 15th day of the 5th month after a foundation's year ends, which is why grant lists like Target's trail the current year.

How Grantsights Checked This Guide

Grantsights checked Target's live pages on November 6, 2026, against the grant lists on the Target Foundation's 2 most recent e-filed 990-PF returns (years ended February 3, 2024 and February 1, 2025), read on November 6, 2026. ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer lists the Target Foundation in Minneapolis under EIN 41-6017088, with tax exemption issued in December 1928 and its most recent e-filed 990-PF for the fiscal year ending February 2025.

Related Guides

• Corporate grants for nonprofits
• Foundation grants for nonprofits
• Minnesota nonprofit grants
• Grants for workforce training
• Walton Family Foundation grants

Sources

• Target: Corporate Giving (opens in a new tab)
• Target: Community Engagement Funds (opens in a new tab)
• Target: Target Circle Community Giving (opens in a new tab)
• Target: GiftCard Request Form (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• Target: Twin Cities Market (opens in a new tab)
• Target: Serving and Strengthening Communities (opens in a new tab)
• Target Foundation (opens in a new tab)
• Target Foundation: Charter (opens in a new tab)
• Target Foundation: Hometown (opens in a new tab)
• Target Foundation: Hometown Program Funding Guidelines (opens in a new tab)
• Target Foundation: National (opens in a new tab)
• Target Foundation: Global (opens in a new tab)
• Simple Generosity: Nonprofit Partner Questionnaire (opens in a new tab)
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: Target Foundation (opens in a new tab)
• NCES: Search for Public Schools (opens in a new tab)
• NCES: Private School Search (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Exemption Requirements, 501(c)(3) Organizations (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Private Foundation Annual Return (opens in a new tab)