ConAgra Foods Foundation Grants

Apply for a Grant

The ConAgra Foods Foundation initiates grants for national and local partnerships and coordinates an employee nominated grant process called Nourish our Communities. On an annual basis, the ConAgra Foods Foundation invites qualified charitable organizations to apply for its Community Impact Grants program.

Potential grantees should carefully review our program overview, funding guidelines and criteria to determine if your project or program matches the Foundation's funding priorities for charitable investments. The Foundation's grant program is competitive, and organizations that best align with our goals and objectives in our core focus areas have the greatest opportunity to be awarded a grant.

The ConAgra Foods Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals and will only consider requests submitted through the Community Impact Grants program at the designated time annually.

Community Impact Grants

The Community Impact Grants program awards grants to impactful, grassroots organizations that leverage innovation and creativity to address child hunger and nutrition needs in communities where ConAgra Foods' employees live and work or states where rates of food insecurity among children are significant. Updated Community Impact Grants guidelines are released each year and include a list of eligible states for the current cycle.

The Community Impact Grants program is a two-step, competitive process that first requires the submission of an online Letter of Interest and the subsequent completion of a full application if invited to apply for a grant.

For more detailed program information and guidelines please download the Community Impact Grants Program Overview, and then proceed to Step 2 to begin the eligibility survey, which will be available Jan. 9, 2012. We encourage you to carefully review the 2012 guidelines before starting the eligibility survey. Please Note: The Community Impact Grants application process opens on Jan. 9, 2012. You will not be able to begin the eligibility survey or application process until Jan. 9, 2012.

While ConAgra Foods makes significant in-kind donations to Feeding America throughout the year, in-kind donations are not part of the Community Impact Grants program. Please see below for additional information about ConAgra Foods in-kind donations.

Step 1: Grant Guidelines

Grantee Eligibility

• All grant recipients must be nonprofit, charitable organizations tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

• Religious organizations such as churches, mosques and synagogues may qualify only if their outreach programs are offered to the general population regardless of religious affiliation AND they have established a separate 501(c)(3) organization to operate the funded program(s).

• ConAgra Foods Foundation does not fund:

  • Organizations that lack a 501(c)(3) designation

  • Social, labor, alumni or fraternal organizations (e.g., higher education alumni groups, sororities, fraternities, workers' unions, exclusive membership clubs limited to a specific constituency, etc.)

  • Professional or amateur sports organizations and teams, or athletic events and programs

  • Political organizations

  • Terrorist organizations or those not compliant with the USA Patriot Act

  • Fundraising events (e.g. galas, golf tournaments, annual awards ceremonies, raffles, telethons, walk-a-thons or auctions)*

  • Emergency funding

  • Loans, debt reduction or operating deficits

  • Individuals

  • Endowments

  • Capital campaigns (unless solicited at the funder's discretion)

  • Memorial campaigns

  • Elementary and secondary education

*Corporate sponsorship of fundraising events is awarded at the discretion of ConAgra Foods, not the ConAgra Foods Foundation.

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Funding Priorities

ConAgra Foods Foundation seeks to support leading nonprofits in the following areas:

• Direct Services—Helping organizations implement high-impact, innovative feeding, hunger relief, and nutrition education programs. ConAgra Foods Foundation supports organizations and programs that:

  • Strive to provide hungry and food insecure children with meals that meet their nutritional needs.

  • Increase families' ability to access healthy, balanced food options.

  • Teach children and families about good nutrition, healthy habits and ways to prevent diseases or problems related to malnutrition, food insecurity, and obesity.

  • Encourage physical activity as a supplemental component to a program largely focused on feeding children or providing them with nutrition education.

• Capacity Building—Strengthening the internal capabilities, operations, and expertise of organizations to reach as many hungry and food insecure children as possible in the quickest, most effective way. ConAgra Foods Foundation supports efforts to:

  • Strengthen an organization's ability to enhance infrastructure, procedures, processes and organizational systems that will help to sustain the expansion and replication of high-quality programs.

  • Foster collaboration and partnership among service providers to minimize duplication, streamline service offerings, and increase the number of children served.

  • Support current leadership and foster the future leadership of the hunger field.

  • Strengthen an organization's ability to collect, analyze and demonstrate the impact of its programs and services in the community.

  • Provide an effective, systematic approach to providing nutrition education and related food skills to children in need and their families.

• Advocacy—Mobilizing resources to heighten public awareness and understanding of the interrelated issues, root causes and effects of child hunger and poor nutrition. ConAgra Foods Foundation supports organizations and programs that:

  • Raise awareness to change the way child hunger and nutrition are viewed in the United States.

  • Activate stakeholders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors toward action, greater impact, and increased funding for eliminating child hunger and improving the nutritional health of children.

  • Research and report on best practices, root causes and effects, and issues and challenges that impact the fields of child hunger and nutrition.

ConAgra Foods Foundation seeks to support leading nonprofits in the following areas:

• Increasing enrollment and ongoing participation in Federal Nutrition Programs with an emphasis on school-based or out-of-school meal programs (i.e., School Breakfast, National School Lunch Program, Summer Food Service Program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, supper programs) in communities where there are high concentrations of children at risk of hunger, including but not limited to rural communities and urban food deserts;

• Replicating or piloting innovative programs to support children's increased access to nutritious meals or nutrition education resources. Nutrition education programs must be grounded in a research-based framework or guidelines such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPlate to be considered for funding;

• Interventions (capacity building, direct service, and/or advocacy) which address populations which are disproportionately affected by child hunger through culturally sensitive approaches; and

• Establishing multi-disciplinary or cross-sector collaborations to improve outreach, community organizing, advocacy, and service coordination in local communities to more effectively service children at risk of hunger.

Geographic Reach

• ConAgra Foods Foundation will accept applications for Community Impact Grants for organizations working in states with both 25 percent or greater child food insecurity, according to Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap, and states where ConAgra Foods has a large employee presence. Those states include: Arkansas, California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington state.

• Organizations that received a Community Impact Grant in 2011 are eligible to apply in this year's funding cycle.

• Special preference will be given to those organizations which are serving child populations disproportionately affected by child hunger including, but not limited to: African American, Hispanic and Native American.

• Additionally, the Foundation prefers to fund programs impacting counties where there are 100 or more ConAgra Foods employees and/or the rate of Child Food Insecurity is 30 percent or greater.

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In-Kind Donations

The ConAgra Foods Foundation only provides product donations to our national partner Feeding America, the nation's leading hunger relief organization. The Foundation is proud of its partnership with Feeding America, its network of more than 200 food banks and 63,000 agencies which has effectively identified, transported and distributed nearly 275 million pounds of food from our plants, distributions centers, mixing centers, third-party warehouses, and retail customer locations during the course of our more than 16-year partnership. In addition, this provides a simplified way to engage multiple facilities across the country and ensure the safety of products distributed to provide meals to children. Organizations interested in receiving product donations should contact their local Feeding America food bank.

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Evaluation Criteria

The ConAgra Foods Foundation evaluates all potential partners using the following set of criteria. Organizations or programs must:

• Have a wide and diverse reach across lines of age, gender, ethnicity, and/or geography.

• Provide programs or projects that align with ConAgra's funding priorities of child hunger and nutrition.

• Possess a detailed and clear strategy for achieving stated program goals.

• Demonstrate alignment with research-based nutrition frameworks or guidelines such as the United States Department of Agriculture's Dietary Guidelines and MyPlate.

• Be a leader in its field and the community.

• Have strong leadership and an active board.

• Seek to partner or collaborate with other service providers to enhance service offerings and minimize duplication.

• Offer opportunities for ConAgra's key stakeholders — employees, executives, consumers, and customers — to get involved.

• Have a proven track record of working with corporate funders.

• Track and measure impact and actively use the information to refine and enhance the organization's programs or projects. Organizations that receive funding are expected to participate in the Foundation's evaluation process to measure the effectiveness and results of its charitable investment.

• Be fiscally strong and have a stable and diverse funding base.

• Present a strong sustainability plan. Please note: Organizations that can demonstrate their ability to replicate and sustain high-impact programs are preferred partners of the Foundation. One-time events or programs are not a priority for the Foundation's charitable investment strategy.

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Supplemental Documentation

As part of an organization's funding application, the following materials will either be requested in the application itself or be a required attachment:

• A list of key project staff members including short biographies and roles and responsibilities. Please do not send resumes.

• A brief bio of senior staff members (e.g. executive director).

• A list of current organization board members, including their affiliations.

• A copy of your organization's most recent audited financial statements.

• A copy of your organization's operational budget for the grant year.

• A detailed communications plan if awarded funding (guidelines made available when extended the opportunity to submit a full application).

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Step 2: Eligibility Survey

By clicking this eligibility survey link you will be connected to a quiz that will determine whether or not your organization is eligible for funding through the Community Impact Grant program.

Please Note: The Community Impact Grants application process opens on Jan. 9, 2012. You will not be able to begin the eligibility survey or grant application process until Jan. 9, 2012.

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