Overview

Are you passionate about ending hunger and food insecurity in Kansas? Are you connected to an organization or community partner that has innovative ideas about how make a difference on this important issue? 

We want to help fund your idea! KHF is offering up to $5,000 for approved ideas/projects that advance the work of Hunger Free Kansas.  

How the Opportunity Works

KHF is providing mini grants of up to $5,000 to eligible Kansas nonprofits to test innovative ideas to address hunger and food insecurity. Any eligible 501(c)(3) organization, government entity, or church in Kansas classified as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, not a “supporting organization” described in Section 509(a)(3), and not a “private foundation” as defined in Section 509(a), may submit projects.  Applying organizations must have their independent 501(c)(3).   

Applications must be submitted by midnight on May 16, 2025, but funding decisions will be made on a rolling basis.  So grantees who submit earlier in the process may receive more opportunity for funding. All final funding decisions will be made prior to the end of June 2025.  You may submit multiple applications. 

Please note the following: Funding is intended to be flexible and allow you to fund whatever types of projects are most needed. Staff time is allowed as an expense. Funding must NOT be utilized for capital campaigns (directly or as an indirect contribution), new building construction or any other construction projects, operating deficits or retirement of debt, endowment programs, real estate acquisitions, lobbying efforts, individual medical care, medical equipment or supplies, medical research, private education or scholarships, or grants to individuals. 

If your project receives funding, you’ll be invited to a one-day Strategy Lab with the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) on July 25 (9 AM – 5 PM) in Wichita. No need to have everything perfectly figured out—this will be your chance to refine your ideas and gain new insights!  This interactive session is designed to strengthen your plan by providing valuable feedback from peers and hands-on tools to help you collaborate effectively. Because of this, we ask that if selected, you please refrain from starting your project until AFTER this training. Please include travel costs for attending this training for two project team members in your application budget. An additional request up to $1,000 may be added onto the application to cover travel costs to the required KLC training (mileage reimbursement, hotel, etc.), totaling up to $6,000. Please explain your calculations in the budget if adding this request. KLC does not intend for cost to be a barrier.  So you may also reach out to the grant contact provided with any additional funding concerns.   

Criteria for Grant Selection

Your idea should fit into one of four categories of work identified by Hunger Free Kansas: 

1. Cross-Sector Learning: Increase shared understanding, shared vision and shared momentum between the private, nonprofit and government sectors. 
2. School-based Nutrition Programs: Opportunities to work with schools to maximize nutrition programs 
3. Alternative Food Systems: Addressing gaps in access, production, processing, distribution, or food recovery 
4. Social Services Access: The need to connect charitable food efforts to other social services and safety nets in a community. 

Funding priority may be given to applications that demonstrate the following: 

• Deepened collaboration with community partners. Some partner examples include: community foundations, local health and wellness coalitions, grassroots community organizations, community leadership programs, healthy equity action teams, Network KS e-community liaisons, Office of Rural Prosperity “rural champions”, congregations, programs funded by other KS philanthropies, etc.
• Focus on a population of particular need in your community based on data sources or community conversations. 
• Innovation to advance systems change (see overview here).  For example, we do not envision funding a purchase of bulk food for a local food pantry, unless it is tied to another innovative project element.
• Leveraging or catalyzing additional resources for the project. 

Examples of Possible Submission Ideas

The list of possible ideas is endless, but to help you brainstorm, see below a few sample ideas in each of the four categories of work.

For Cross-Sector Learning: 

• Convene stakeholders from the nonprofit, government, and private sectors and facilitate cross-sector learning on food insecurity.  Use the Hunger Free Kansas data walk as a part of this experience! 
• Take on storytelling!  Create success and challenges stories to be shared at a cross-sector convening. 
• Help a group of cross-sector partners apply for a grant initiative; provide grant writing support and capacity.

For School-based Nutrition Programs:

• Host a series of meetings with local school officials and food service directors to better understand opportunities/needs for summer meal sites, greater free and reduced lunch participation, farm to school opportunities, etc.
• Work with a local higher education institution (community college, college, university) to take steps towards a “Hunger Free Campus” designation
• Support a school district’s work to enroll families in Free and Reduced Lunch or Summer EBT.

For Alternative Food Systems:

• Launch/support Incubator/Community Kitchens, including connections to community meals. (This could include first steps such as a feasibility study).
• Design a local food recovery system. Explore what software might make this happen.
• Implement or adapt the Kitchen ReStore project for your community.

For Social Services Access:

• Consider stationing a Community Health Worker at a food pantry or community meal sites.
• Work with a local Public Health Department, Federally Qualified Healthcare Center, or Hospital to begin conversations to explore or connect to existing Food as Medicine/Produce Prescription opportunities.
• Help a local food pantry enhance operations with best practices (ex. incentives for nutritious choices at food pantries or assessing and reducing barriers to food pantry access.)

How to Apply

To apply, please scroll down on this page and complete the application form. Before you begin completing the form, please note the following: 

• The application cannot be saved once started, so we recommend preparing a word document in advance for offline reference. 
• Beware of timing out of the form. Once you begin a form submission, the form “times out” after three (3) hours if not submitted.
• You will be asked to upload a copy of your IRS determination letter. This is a letter issued by the Internal Revenue Service confirming your organization’s non-profit status/tax exemption. Please have this letter ready prior to entering your application information. 
• You must have the contact information of a legally authorized signatory for the applying organization. Signing authority is restricted to an organization’s CEO, President, Executive Director or School District Superintendent.  Please have your legally authorized signatory’s name, title, and e-mail address ready and available.
• One of the questions on the application form asks which regions of Kansas will be served by the initiative. For the purpose of this application, please refer to the Economic Development Districts outlined by the Kansas Department of Commerce. Which counties fall into which regions are indicated on this map. 

When the application form is complete, please hit the “Submit” button. You will receive a confirmation after submission.  If you have questions, please contact applications@khf.org. You can also join two online information sessions on April 7 (11 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.) or April 11 (1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.). Click here to register.