Government grants dominate most church funding searches, but two of the more accessible sources for a facility project aren't government programs at all — they're corporate giving programs, and they work nothing like a federal NOFO. Lowe's Hometowns Grant Program and Thrivent's giving programs both fund church facilities regularly, but the path in, the eligibility rules, and what counts as an acceptable project differ enough from a typical grant application that they're worth understanding on their own terms.
Lowe's Hometowns Grant Program pairs materials and volunteer labor to physically renovate a community space, and churches qualify if the renovated space serves the whole community — not just the congregation — without discriminating based on religion, ethnicity, or race. It's nomination-based, not a direct application, and Lowe's selects up to 100 projects nationally each year. Thrivent runs two separate paths: Thrivent Choice, where members direct "Choice Dollars" to enrolled nonprofits and churches with a $1-for-$1 match from Thrivent, and Thrivent Charitable, which makes direct foundation grants to IRS-qualified 501(c)(3)s, churches included. Neither replaces the scale of a federal or denominational capital grant, but both are realistic supplements for a defined project.
Federal and state grant programs run on formal compliance cycles — NOFOs, scoring rubrics, multi-year reporting. Corporate giving programs are funded out of a company's community-relations or foundation budget instead, and they're built around goals a grants officer at HHS or HUD would never optimize for: brand visibility in the community, employee volunteer engagement, and a good local news story. That's not a criticism — it's the reason these programs are often easier to access than a federal grant, and it's also why they tend to fund smaller, more visible, more bounded projects rather than large capital campaigns. A church weighing whether to spend limited grant-writing time on a corporate program versus a federal one should size the ask accordingly.
What it funds: A physical renovation of a community space, combining Lowe's materials with volunteer labor from Lowe's associates and community members.
How you get in: Nomination-based. Community members nominate a local space for consideration during the program's annual nomination window ("Hometowns season"), rather than the organization submitting a traditional grant application.
Scale: Lowe's selects up to 100 projects nationwide each year. The program has run annually since 2022.
Church eligibility: Religious organizations can be eligible, but the renovated space has to be used to provide services to the whole community, without discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, or race.
That last line is the one to build a strategy around. A sanctuary renovation, reserved for worship and congregation use, doesn't fit the program's model. A fellowship hall that hosts a public food pantry, a gym used for a community youth league open to non-members, a playground open to the neighborhood, or a community garden that anyone can participate in — those look much more like what the program is designed to fund, because the space itself functions as a shared community resource that happens to be owned by a congregation. If your church already runs community-facing programming out of a specific space, that's the space to put forward.
How it works: Thrivent members who hold eligible financial products are given Choice Dollars each year and direct them to enrolled nonprofit organizations, including churches. Thrivent contributes $1 in actual grant funding for every Choice Dollar a member directs.
What that means for your church: Funding isn't awarded through a proposal review — it depends on enrollment as an eligible organization and then on how many Thrivent members choose to direct dollars your way. A congregation with several Thrivent-affiliated members has a real, if modest, ongoing funding stream; one without any has thin odds through this specific path.
How it works: A separate foundation arm that makes direct grants to IRS-qualified public charities, which explicitly includes religious and governmental organizations, through its own application and review process rather than member designations.
Why it's different: This is a more conventional grantmaker relationship than Thrivent Choice — a church applies, Thrivent Charitable reviews the request against its own priorities, and a decision follows, independent of any individual member's product portfolio.
Because of Thrivent's historic Lutheran fraternal-benefit roots, awareness of the Choice Dollars program is often strongest among Lutheran congregations, but eligibility for Thrivent Charitable's direct grants isn't limited by denomination in the same way. Worth checking both, since they're functionally separate funding relationships housed under the same organization.
| Program | How Money Flows | What It Typically Funds | Path In |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lowe's Hometowns | Materials + volunteer labor for a physical renovation | A defined, visible renovation of a shared community space | Community nomination during the annual window |
| Thrivent Choice | Member-directed dollars, matched $1-for-$1 by Thrivent | General organizational support, ongoing and incremental | Enroll as an eligible organization; depends on member designations |
| Thrivent Charitable | Direct foundation grant | Varies by request; a more traditional grant relationship | Standard application to Thrivent Charitable |
Our free eligibility review looks across corporate, federal, and denominational sources to find what your project might qualify for.
Check Your Grant Eligibility →Neither program is built to fund a major capital campaign on its own. Lowe's Hometowns is capped at a defined, in-kind renovation project rather than a cash grant a church can allocate freely, and its 100-projects-nationally scale means a lot of nominated spaces don't get selected in a given year. Thrivent Choice's funding depends on member behavior a church doesn't control and tends to arrive as smaller, recurring amounts rather than a lump sum for a project. For anything at true capital-campaign scale — a new building, a major structural repair, a large-scale accessibility retrofit — these corporate programs work best layered alongside larger sources like building repair grants, community development funding, or a loan structured around a realistic repayment plan, not as a substitute for them.
It's also worth distinguishing this from corporate matching gifts, which is a related but different mechanism — matching gifts multiply an individual donor's personal contribution to your church, while the programs in this guide are the corporation or its foundation funding your church directly.