Bender Family Foundation Grant

The Bender Family Foundation works to foster, preserve and fund the arts, culture, education, history and environment of New York State's Capital Region. The fund is presented through the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region, whose mission is to strengthen the community through philanthropy and whose competitive grantmaking serves organizations in the Capital Region. For Bender Family Foundation funding, geographic preference is given first to projects in the City of Albany and then to projects in Albany County. Projects within a radius of no more than 30 miles from the site of the present New York State Capitol Building on State Street in Albany will also be considered. The Bender Family Foundation supports projects addressing arts, culture, education, history, and the environment. Priority is given to Albany County projects. The Foundation accepts proposals from organizations whose directors are active as volunteers, directors, or donors. It will consider requests supporting capital campaigns and capital expenditures. The Foundation also awards challenge grants and permits its grants to be used as matching funds for grants from other foundations. The source does not establish a mandatory matching or cost-sharing requirement for all applicants; rather, matching funds are an allowable grant structure. General competitive grant guidelines from the Community Foundation state that eligible applicants must qualify as nonprofit organizations under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or operate under the fiscal sponsorship of a qualifying nonprofit organization. The Bender Family Foundation does not make grants to individuals and does not support annual fund drives. General Community Foundation restrictions also identify programs operated by the Community Foundation, scholarship or fellowship programs, research, endowments, political, governmental or religious activities, travel, conferences or speaker expenses, advertisements, special or fundraising events, and annual appeals or membership contributions as generally ineligible for competitive grants. Grants from the Bender Family Foundation usually range from $5,000 to $15,000. The Foundation does not make grants to the same organization in consecutive years. The 2026 guidelines specifically state that an organization awarded a Bender Family Foundation grant in 2024 is eligible to apply again in 2026, while an organization awarded a grant in 2025 will not be eligible for new Bender Family Foundation funding until 2027. No total program funding amount or number of awards is provided in the supplied materials. A pre-application questionnaire is required before the formal application stage. For the 2026 cycle, pre-application questionnaires were due March 11, 2026. Formal applications were scheduled for May through June 2026, with the specific due date indicated on the formal application. Community Foundation guidance explains that links to full applications are not posted online for funds requiring pre-applications. Organizations invited to submit a full application receive the application link by email. The supplied grant listing also identifies the opportunity as application closed. All Community Foundation pre-applications, applications, and accompanying materials are submitted through its online application portal. Final decisions for the 2026 Bender Family Foundation cycle were scheduled for August 2026, although the Community Foundation notes that complex applications may require additional review time and applicants will be kept informed about proposal progress. The materials establish a recurring annual pattern through the consecutive-year eligibility provisions and the dated 2026 cycle. Using the March 11, 2026 pre-application deadline as the available annual cycle anchor, the next expected pre-application period is March 2027, subject to confirmation when the next guidelines are published. General contacts supplied for the Community Foundation include its main office at 2 Tower Place, Albany, New York 12203, telephone 518-446-9638, and info@cfgcr.org. The 2026 guidelines additionally identify Shelly Connolly, VP of Community Grantmaking, at sconnolly@cfgcr.org and Melisa Logan, Program Officer and Database Administrator, at mlogan@cfgcr.org.

Emphasize alignment with arts, culture, education, history, or environment; demonstrate strong relevance to the City of Albany or Albany County where applicable; confirm that the organization did not receive Bender Family Foundation funding in the immediately preceding year; capital campaigns and capital expenditures may be requested; challenge grants and use as matching funds for other foundation grants are permitted.