Opportunity Overview
Foellinger Foundation’s 2026 Youth Development community-based grant cycle opened September 8, 2026. Applications are due November 2, 2026, with awards announced in February 2027. The Foundation supports Allen County nonprofits that promote positive social, emotional, and academic youth development and help young people transition successfully to adulthood, with particular emphasis on children and families facing the greatest economic need and least opportunity.
The Foundation’s current 2026 schedule publishes the November 2 deadline date but does not state a 2026 filing clock time or time zone. A linked guidelines PDF includes a 5:00 p.m. submission time for the prior 2025 cycle and is dated July 2025; Atlas does not import that prior-cycle clock time into 2026. The current exact 2026 cutoff time and time zone therefore remain ACCOUNT INPUT REQUIRED / issuer confirmation required before deadline-sensitive action.
Eligibility
The Foundation primarily funds Allen County-based 501(c)(3) public charities that are not private foundations and fall within eligible 509(a) public-charity subcategories. The current Foundation eligibility update, effective June 1, 2026, states that new applicants for Community-Based grants must have maintained 501(c)(3) status for at least five years. Organizations already receiving a Community-Based grant that are younger than five years are not automatically discontinued and may remain eligible for continued support under the Foundation’s published transition rule.
Applicants must be headquartered in Allen County and the proposed work must focus on Allen County. Public and private schools may not seek general operating support through this program. Governmental agencies may occasionally be considered for qualifying programs or projects that enhance community quality of life where the enhancement would occur only with private contributions.
Funding and Allowable Support
Eligible applicants may request operating support, program support, and multi-year support. Capital support is not accepted. Organizations may submit only one application for operating or program support per calendar year.
The current official materials reviewed by Atlas do not publish a universal per-applicant minimum or maximum award amount and do not publish a mandatory match or cost-share percentage. Atlas therefore does not infer either.
Major Restrictions
The Foundation does not fund new organizations or programs that fail the applicable operating-history requirement, individuals, scholarships, travel assistance, conference fees, endowments, sectarian religious purposes, project/program/operating/capital-campaign deficits, programs normally supported by taxpayers, sponsorships, camperships or camp-related programming, special events, advertising, group trips, annual campaigns or appeals, or capital campaigns.
Application Requirements
Applications are submitted online through the Foundation’s grant system. The program requires eligibility screening, organization information, a requested amount, an executive summary, and a formal evaluation plan. Applicants should be prepared to provide outcome-indicator tools or data-collection strategies, mission alignment, evidence of service to people with the greatest economic need and least opportunity, client and county service data, governance information, a board roster, financial risk information, current and proposed operating budgets, the most recent audit and management letter or permitted substitute financial documents, the most recent IRS Form 990, and program budgets when requesting program support.
Atlas Analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 88/100. The opportunity is current, locally controlled, sufficiently ahead of deadline, and relevant to youth-serving behavioral-health, community-health, disability, prevention, and social-emotional programs when the applicant clearly fits Foellinger’s Youth Development framework.
N9+ Fit: 18/100 conditional. QC Healthcare Fit: 34/100 conditional. Capital support is expressly ineligible, and the program is not a healthcare procurement. A youth-serving behavioral-health or community-health nonprofit may have legitimate operating or program needs within the Foundation’s rules, but N9+ hardware or other capital-like technology must not be assumed eligible. Ordinary INITIAL OUTREACH must not introduce or sell N9+.
Required Next Action
Identify a specific Allen County-headquartered youth-serving 501(c)(3) applicant that satisfies the five-year rule for new applicants or a documented transition exception for an existing grantee. Before ORIGINAL outreach, verify applicant-specific program fit, current-year application status, any Foundation relationship constraints, exact 2026 deadline time/time zone, verified business Contact, Email_Opt_Out is not true, no authoritative permanent hard bounce, and no duplicate original outreach across Account, Contact, Deal, Atlas_Email_Queue, and authoritative send history.
Authoritative sources: Foellinger Foundation How to Apply; Foellinger Foundation Youth Development Q&A Workshop and Evaluation Plan Training pages; Foellinger Foundation Grant Eligibility Requirement Update; Early Childhood, Family and Youth Development Grant Guidelines currently linked from the Foundation website.