Grants & Initiatives

The Kauffman Foundation makes grants and supports initiatives in entrepreneurship and education at points where we can step into an issue and affect the lives of a great many people in a significant way for the long term.

Grants go to a grantee or partner organization to fund a particular project or program related to our focus areas. While an individual grant may focus on a narrow piece of our work, initiatives are larger enterprises that support a broader idea or a wider field of interest. As a result, a single grant or a group of several grants may go to support a single major initiative.

The Foundation’s grant making framework includes idea grants to get innovation moving, seed grants to pilot and test good ideas, and scale grants to refine and bring good programs up to scale. We make sustaining grants to programs only as needed and we watch for programs that can be spun out on their own.