Capacity Building Grants

Community Foundation of Greenville allocates funds for Capacity Building Grants based on income generated by the Foundation’s grantmaking endowment.

The Community Foundation welcomes grant requests from established 501(c)(3) tax- exempt agencies (operating two or more years), located within or offering services to the residents of Greenville County, South Carolina.

The Foundation encourages grant requests that support an organization’s ability to establish and/or maintain a solid operating structure and develop and sustain good governance practices. We believe that when capacity building is successful, it strengthens and improves an organization’s ability to achieve its mission, sustain itself over time, and have a quantifiable impact on the community in which it serves.

The 2026 Capacity Building Grant application opens June 1, 2026. The deadline is July 17, 2026.

CFG Grant Award Budget: $150,000
Awards range from $5,000 to $12,500

Not Eligible to Apply: Organizations that received a grant award in the previous year cannot apply in the current grant cycle.

Capacity Building funding opportunities may include:

• Projects designed to improve an organization’s ability to monitor and/or respond to the needs of its clients and
• Projects involving the adoption of management innovation, process improvement, and accountability.
• Strategies to form collaborative ventures with public, private, or other nonprofit
• To support technology audits and analyses of information management systems
• Purchases of computers (hardware or software) or other equipment necessary to improve the organization’s ability to achieve its
• Efforts to diversify the organization’s revenue streams.

Examples of Capacity Building include:

• Organizational assessment
• Strategic and long-range planning
• Program evaluation and planning
• Technology upgrades
• Developing marketing plans
• Mergers/collaboration
• Feasibility studies

The Community Foundation will follow these guidelines in evaluating grant requests:

• Thoroughly review the requesting organization’s ability to succeed, including evaluation of its operating budget, Board of Directors, staffing capability, and
• Evaluate each request carefully to ensure that projects do not overlap, and services are not duplicated.
• Require post-grant evaluation to determine whether the funded project met the outlined
• We will not make grants to individuals.
• We will not fund tuition for degree programs, fees, and other costs to attend conferences, capital campaigns, campaign consultants (other than initial feasibility study), recurring staff or board training expenses, additional staffing positions, and endowments.

Click here to see a list of past grant recipients.

To report a problem or make inquiries, contact Debbie Cooper at dcooper@cfgreenville.org.