Role of Share Our Strength in the funding ecosystem
Share Our Strength is a national nonprofit dedicated to ending childhood hunger and addressing the broader conditions of poverty. Best known for its No Kid Hungry campaign, the organization partners with schools, local governments and community-based organizations across the United States. A core part of its work is financial: since March 2020, Share Our Strength reports having provided more than $170–180 million in grants to communities and helped deliver billions of meals to children.
Through No Kid Hungry and related initiatives, Share Our Strength channels funding to front‑line organizations so they can expand and improve nutrition programs for kids. This includes supporting school and community meal programs, summer meal sites, and other local strategies to ensure children have consistent access to healthy food where they live and learn.
Funding themes and typical recipients
The organization focuses its funding on several interconnected themes around food security and child well‑being. Under its “School & Community Meals” work, grants often go to schools and community groups to introduce or scale up innovative meal models, such as breakfast in the classroom or free meals at community centers during school breaks. These grants can help pay for equipment, staffing, outreach and other practical needs that make it possible to reach more children.
Share Our Strength also aims to support “Family Meals” by protecting and strengthening public nutrition programs like SNAP and WIC, and by helping more eligible families access them. While some of this work is policy advocacy, it is complemented by funding to organizations that help enroll families and connect them to available resources.
Grants and financial support mechanisms
The No Kid Hungry page explicitly notes that much of Share Our Strength’s funding goes out as grants to schools and community groups. These grants enable local partners to purchase equipment, hire staff and implement systems that expand meal services for children. The organization’s financials show that a majority of its expenses are programmatic, underlining the central role of direct support to grantees in its model.
Share Our Strength publishes annual reports, audited financial statements and IRS Form 990 filings, giving transparency into how donor funds are allocated between grants, program activities, management and fundraising. These documents illustrate the scale of its grantmaking and the geographic reach of its programs across the United States.
Advocacy, partnerships and impact
Beyond direct grants, Share Our Strength engages in advocacy at the federal, state and local levels to improve nutrition policies and increase funding for public meal programs. The organization collaborates with school districts, municipal leaders, community nonprofits, and private-sector partners to build sustainable solutions to child hunger.
Over more than 40 years, Share Our Strength has evolved from a broad anti-hunger initiative into a major funder and convener in the child nutrition space. Its mix of grantmaking, technical assistance and policy advocacy aims to deliver both immediate access to meals and long‑term systemic change, ensuring that no child in the United States grows up hungry.