Explore 434 federal funding streams that support children and youth

By Esther Grambs, Manager, Federal Fiscal Data, at Children’s Funding Project.

The landscape of federal funding for children and youth has rarely been so uncertain as it is today. The 2026 and 2027 White House budget requests called for full or partial elimination of many of the federal funding streams that support afterschool, summer and other enrichment programs for children and youth. Meanwhile, current appropriations negotiations in Congress threaten to defund these programs. Finally, none of us can forget how last summer’s unanticipated withholding of afterschool funding threatened to destabilize the entire afterschool sector. That’s why Children’s Funding Project spent the first half of 2026 tracking down every federal funding stream that supports children and youth, documenting the policy and funding changes currently affecting them and integrating that information into the latest version of our Federal Funding Streams for Children and Youth Services database.

The database is a resource designed to help advocates, policymakers and practitioners understand the full federal funding landscape for children and youth, find what’s relevant to their work and make the case for investing in kids. It catalogs the purposes, key characteristics and funding totals of 434 funding streams, spanning 20 federal agencies and seven fiscal years through fiscal year 2025. This newest update marks a significant milestone: for the first time, the database reflects a full audit of the Annual Publication of Assistance Listings—a compendium of more than 2,200 federal funding streams—to identify every stream with a stated purpose or goal of serving children and youth from the prenatal stage through age 24. That audit surfaced more than 130 funding streams not captured in the database’s original 2023 release (which cataloged 280 funding streams), nor the 2024 update (which added an additional 40 funding streams). The result is what we believe to be the most comprehensive publicly available database of domestic federal funding for children and youth.

Our database can help afterschool advocates in the following ways:

1. Find information about trends in federal funding for afterschool programs as well as federal funding that supports all the services necessary to create an optimal environment for afterschool programs.
    
2. View the history of federal funding for afterschool in your state.
    
3. Track funding and policy changes to federal funding streams since January 2025.

If you’re looking for expertise about how to access this kind of federal funding for afterschool programs, including details about application deadlines and eligibility requirements, or information about state and philanthropic funding for afterschool and summer programs, connect with the experts here at Afterschool Alliance and explore Afterschool Alliance’s Afterschool and Summer Program Funding Database.

Find federal funding that supports the greater afterschool environment

As afterschool experts know, children and youth can thrive only when all of their needs are met in every aspect of their lives. The Federal Funding Streams for Children and Youth Services database allows users to pursue this goal in several ways:

• Explore federal funding that supports kids during the hours they are not in afterschool programs, ensuring they arrive at their afterschool programs healthy, supported and engaged. This includes funding for housing, nutrition, elementary and secondary education, transportation, health care, early care and education, special education and disability supports, public health and more.
   
• Identify federal funding for special populations that might be present in your programs, like juvenile-justice affected youth; youth experiencing homelessness; American Indian, Alaska Native or Hawaiian Native youth; foster youth; English language learners and others.
   
• Discover federal funding that puts the right people, data and administrative infrastructure in place to efficiently and effectively deliver funding and services. We track funding that organizations can spend on staff recruitment and professional development, funding infrastructure, data and technology systems, and strategic finance planning for their programs.

View the history of federal funding for afterschool in your state

While the first page of our database shows federal funding at the national level, the second page of our database shows how that federal funding was distributed among states. You can select your state (or multiple states) and see which federal programs provided funding to your state and the amount they provided between fiscal years 2019 and 2025. This can be powerful data for advocates making a case to state legislators about what is and isn’t being funded by the federal government, and where the state should step in.

Track federal funding and policy changes

The third and final page of our database tracks the funding and policy changes that have been made since January 2025 to any of the 434 funding streams in our database. This includes changes made through federal legislation, regulation, department guidance or enforcement, program staffing and more. We know that the policy landscape at this moment is tumultuous and confusing, so we wanted to make sure our users could find historical data and new policy information in one place and in an easy-to-read format.

Every element of this database is designed with a purpose: to equip advocates, policymakers and practitioners with the most useful, actionable view of federal funding for children and youth available anywhere. We continue to add data and new ways to help you explore the data, so check back often to see our latest updates. If you have questions or feedback about how we can improve the database, please contact Esther Grambs, manager of federal fiscal data, at esther@childrensfundingproject.org.

Children’s Funding Project is a nonprofit social impact organization that helps communities, states and Native nations expand equitable opportunities for children and youth through strategic public financing.