The City of Homer’s Grant Program for 2026 is open to applicants now and has approximately $34,000 available to support Homer-based nonprofits that provide programs and services within the city limits. The program funding is made possible through an annual allocation from the City of Homer and annual earnings from the city’s endowment funds. The deadline for the application this year is February 24th.
Last year, 2025, the city reviewed 13 applications and one application was deemed ineligible. Recipients included: the American Legion Auxiliary, Bunnell Street Art Gallery, Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, Cook Inletkeeper, the Homer Community Food Pantry, Homer Council on the Arts, Homer Farmers Market, Homer Hockey Association, Homer OPUS, Hospice of Homer, HoWL, the Kachemak Bay Family Planning Clinic and SPROUT. A total of $33,300 was awarded.
The eligibility requirements for 2026 include that:
- Organization has IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status
- Organization has been in existence in Homer for a minimum of 3 years
- Organization's primary facility is located within Homer City limits, and core programs, activities, and services are offered within the Homer City limits
- Organization is administered locally with a local policy-making board of directors
- The organization had no other financial or in-kind support from the City of Homer during the last fiscal year.
- If applicants are returning from last year, they must complete the prior year's evaluation to be eligible to receive funding.
More thorough details on the application process are available through the Homer Foundation website: homerfoundation.org.
According to Kayla Rivers, development and marketing manager with the Homer Foundation, “the grants are reviewed by a grants committee, and that's generally 50% board members of the Homer foundation and 50% community members. And they last year, we started a new thing where we did it in person, so nonprofits came in and did a short presentation, and it was about two days of presentations, and that worked out really well, and all of our committee members were really excited because they got to learn a lot of things that were happening that they didn't know local nonprofits were doing. So that that felt like a nice way to bring face to face, and that was a new way that we hadn't organized the application process before…”
The Homer Foundation recently posted on FaceBook that they also have spaces available on their Grants Committee board if people are interested in applying. Last year’s committee was comprised of Paul Seaton, Sara Reinert, Kenneth Schneider and community members Kathy Hill, Debbie Fanatia and Kasey Aderhold.
Rivers noted that one of the main benefits of this grant is that the primary purpose is to serve the non-profit’s general operating costs not for any particular feature that the organization might need to focus on in the process of applying for other grants. She also noted that with the reception of this funding it can help organizations gain leverage for grants from other resources by showing that they already have community support.
Again, the application deadline for this grant program is February 24th.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
