Arkansas Grants for Nonprofits
Learn about grants for Arkansas by browsing our curated list of top Arkansa funders below. Members can also research funding opportunities using the search tool for Grant Finder. Become a member.
Funding landscape and giving trends in Arkansas
A smaller giving landscape than its other Southeast neighbors, grants for Arkansas nonprofits have been gradually increasing in recent years. Since 2018, over 400 grantmakers and counting have conducted about $940 million a year.
Grantmaking in Arkansas has evolved on a fundamental level. According to Dr. Sherece West-Scantlebury, President and CEO of Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation:
“A new generation of leaders are leading philanthropy” in Arkansas (…) SECF members Regan Gruber Moffitt of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation (WRF) and Sarah Kinser from the Arkansas Community Foundation (ARCF), along with others, founded Arkansas Impact Philanthropy (AIP). In 2016, the Clinton Foundation, WRF, and ARCF hosted the Bold Ideas Gathering at the Clinton Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Fifty leaders from 26 philanthropic organizations gathered to share experiences and brainstorm solutions for some of Arkansas’s largest challenges. From that meeting, AIP emerged.“
Knowledge about giving in Arkansas also filters through Philanthropy Southeast and the Southeastern Council of Foundations. Grants for education outpace all of the state’s giving areas combined though arts & culture, as well as the environment and animals reveal other major giving areas. Arkansasan foundations are currently working to ramp up giving for economic development, an area of deep need state wide. In contrast from other states in the South, giving in Arkansas is particularly collaborative, as shows the recent development of Arkansas Impact Philanthropy (AIP) and the Asset Funders Network (AFN) – Arkansas Chapter.
Arkansas’s top funders include a mix of private, public, corporate and community foundations. While some funding whales dominate grantmaking in Arkansas, namely the Walton Family Foundation, which is also a major national funder, most grantmaking in Arkansas occur at the grassroots level. Other major Arkansas funders include Windgate Charitable Foundation, Arkansas Community Foundation, The Jesus Fund, Native American Agriculture Fund, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Winthrop Rockefeller Trust, and Charles A. Frueauff Foundation, among others.
