The Story County Community Foundation 2026 Community Betterment Grant supports projects that improve quality of life for residents of Story County, Iowa. The Foundation expressly supports community needs across health and human services, education, arts and culture, the environment, and civic engagement.
Funding and Deadline
Grant requests of up to $25,000 will be considered. Applications opened May 1, 2026 and must be submitted electronically by 5:00 PM on September 30, 2026. The current official page does not separately state a time zone, so Atlas does not infer one. Applicants are expected to be notified by the end of October 2026, with the grant awards reception scheduled for November 5, 2026.
Eligible Applicants
Applicants must be Story County, Iowa-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations or qualifying governmental units that provide public benefit to Story County residents. Organizations without qualifying IRS status may apply through an eligible fiscal sponsor, and a fiscal sponsorship agreement must accompany the application.
Applicants with an active grant extension or an outstanding final report from a prior Foundation grant are not eligible to receive a new grant until the prior project and reporting obligations are resolved. The Foundation states that priority is given to organizations that have not received a grant in the past three years.
Allowable Project Structure and Exclusions
The Foundation will not consider capital fundraising campaigns, endowment creation, routine operating expenses such as staff salaries, office rent, utilities or office supplies, grants or scholarships to individuals, deficit reduction, programs requiring religious participation, projects that do not benefit Story County residents, one-time or annual events or festivals, political or lobbying activity, or private foundations.
The official 2026 guidance does not establish a fixed mandatory match percentage. Applicants must submit through the Foundation’s online grants portal and should provide a project-specific budget that identifies the requested Foundation share and other relevant funding sources.
Healthcare, Public Health and EMS Relevance
Health and human services are an express Foundation focus. Recent Story County Community Foundation awards include Primary Health Care patient-assistance work, ChildServe facility improvements, suicide-prevention programming, security upgrades, and other community-service projects. Qualifying healthcare, behavioral-health, public-health, EMS, fire-rescue, and human-services organizations can therefore be legitimate candidates when the proposed project directly benefits Story County residents and satisfies the current rules.
Date Control
The current grant overview states that Community Betterment final reports are due August 31, 2027, unless an extension is requested. The embedded application page still contains a legacy sentence stating projects and final reports are due August 31, 2026, which predates the September 30, 2026 application deadline. For package production, Atlas must use the current 2027 overview date conservatively and confirm the controlling completion/reporting date with the Foundation before submission.
Atlas Analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 88/100. This is a current, locally controlled opportunity with a meaningful $25,000 ceiling, broad charitable eligibility, explicit health and human services relevance, and a straightforward online application pathway. Applicant-specific eligibility, prior-grant reporting status, project allowability and deadline readiness must still be verified before outreach.
N9+ fit is conditional. The current rules do not expressly authorize or prohibit connected clinical examination technology, so any N9+ inclusion must be supported by a legitimate Story County healthcare or public-safety project, confirmed project-specific allowability, procurement compliance, budget fit, and credible service-delivery need. Ordinary ORIGINAL outreach should introduce the grant and Atlas grant-package assistance only and should not sell N9+.