Apply for a Grant

Between our Community Fund grants and our affiliate fund grants, we offer many options for competitive funding. We want to help you apply for the most relevant cycle, so if your organization has not received a grant from us in the past or you have a new program you're seeking funding for, tell us about your program. We'll give you feedback on your proposal and direct you to the right grant cycles.

We begin accepting applications online one month in advance of each grant deadline. For details about when you can apply, visit our Competitive Grants page.

Once you've determined which grant cycles are the best match for your program and have reviewed the application dates, you're ready to get started using our online application system. It only takes about five minutes to register if you are an approved 501(c)(3) organization. During the registration process, you will be asked to complete a series of questions about you and your organization. Be sure to have your EIN on hand.

For information about how to use the online application system, view our video tutorial.

Whether you want to work directly in the online system or you prefer to gather all of your information first, be sure to review the application questions ahead of time. The questions for each grant cycle are available on our Competitive Grants page.

We also offer these additional tips on applying for our grants to help you focus on the most important information. If you're using a fiscal sponsor, please review the information we'll need from you.

Now that your materials are prepared, you're ready to submit your application. If you've been working offline, log in to the system and follow the steps to apply. Once a grant cycle has closed, you will receive an email in six to eight weeks notifying you of our decision.

In six to eight weeks, you will receive an email from Brian Reitz, our vice president of community investment.

If your grant was approved, you should log in to our online system to complete and submit your signed agreement. Once you have done that, the system will allow you to request your grant check. You have up to two years to make the request and use the funds from the time the grant was awarded, but you may not apply for a new grant from the same fund until a year has passed.

If your grant was declined, you are welcome to apply again at any time.

Once you have used your grant funding from Akron Community Foundation, use our online system to share the results of your program. This is an easy, convenient way to submit your required progress reports without the stress of paperwork.

In the fall of 2025, Akron Community Foundation began transitioning its grant management system from Foundant (previous portal) to GOapply (new portal). If you received a grant in 2024 or 2025 and have questions about where to complete your Signed Agreement, Payment Request or Grant Report, please reference our Grant Stages Schedule or contact Kim Nott.

Please note that previous applications and grant reports will not be available in the new grant portal. Grantees who would like to save a copy of application materials from our previous system can log into Foundant and download them before April 15, 2026. Instructions for downloading your materials can be found here.

Registering is simple and only takes about five minutes. Just go to our registration page to get started. You will be asked to complete a series of questions about you and your organization. Be sure to have your EIN on hand. If you need some help navigating the system, view our video tutorial. Make sure to bookmark the login page for future use. For further assistance, please contact Kim Nott.

When you're logged in to the system, you will be able to see which of our competitive grant programs are accepting applications by clicking "Opportunities." This will show you our list of open grant opportunities, including those for our Community Fund and our many affiliate funds. Applications open one month prior to the deadline to give you plenty of time to submit. If you still have questions after reviewing, please contact Cristina González Alcalá, Ph.D. or Mariana Silva.

The system auto saves your work when you click "next" to move to the next page of the application. You always have the option to click "save" at the bottom of the screen, too. We highly encourage you to save often, as GOapply is a Microsoft-based system and any Microsoft issues or outages are out of our control. If you prefer to have all your work done ahead of time, you can simply copy our Community Fund application questions and paste them into a word processing program to complete first.

Yes. Microsoft will automatically log users out after 20 minutes of inactivity, and you will not receive a pop-up warning that you were logged out. If you think you're done using the system for a while, we recommend you save your application and log out.

Applications and grant reports completed in Foundant (our previous system) can be downloaded from that system until April 15. When you are logged in to Foundant, just view your dashboard to see your application history.

The new grant portal (GOapply) will store any applications and grant reports completed in that portal. You can easily find and use relevant information from past applications to help you complete the application you're currently working on. Simply log into the system and visit the "Submitted" tab for a list of all previous documents.

Unfortunately, no. Responses are limited to a specific word count to ensure a timely review process.

Absolutely. Please contact Cristina González Alcalá, Ph.D. or Mariana Silva for further assistance.