Enthuse Foundation Grant Program

Grant Overview

In one documented cycle, more than 1,300 women CPG founders submitted over 3,200 total applications to this program. That math – roughly 2.5 submissions per person – tells you something the donor page doesn’t say directly: serious applicants weren’t picking one category and hoping. They were mapping their documented financial gaps against multiple grants and building separate cases for each.

The Enthuse Foundation Grant Program is not a single award. Eight independently sponsored grants share one application window, each covering a different gap in a CPG founder’s professional or personal financial life. Insurance. Marketing. Healthcare. Retirement. Professional services. Technology. Environmental sustainability. One $5,000 award for Planet & Purpose; seven at $2,500. And the choice of which to pursue – or how many – is the first real strategic decision in this process.

Key Grant Information

Expired

Closed

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Enthuse Foundation Grant Program

Funded by Enthuse Foundation

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Grant Snapshot

Grant Award

$5,000

Application Deadline

April 27 2026

Eligible Region

United States

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Eligibility and Benefits

Eligibility Criteria

• Identify as a woman entrepreneur with an established CPG business
• Business must be your full-time job
• U.S. citizen
• No prior Enthuse Foundation funding (Grant Program or Pitch Competition)
• If selected: submit required New Vendor Forms
• Individual grants may have their own specific criteria

Grant Benefits

• $5,000 for Planet & Purpose category
• $2,500 for each of seven remaining categories
• 2025 program total: $37,000 across eight recipients
• Post-award: document and prove use of funds

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Focus Areas

women entrepreneurs grant CPG business funding consumer packaged goods grant

Before building any application narrative, it’s worth a quick self-check against the eligibility rules. Some are binary – citizenship, prior funding history – and easy to confirm in 60 seconds. Others, like what “full-time” means when your CPG income is still growing, deserve a longer look. Our tool walks through both.

If the tool confirms you’re eligible, the natural next step is figuring out which category gives you the strongest documented case – not the most appealing name. Submit an assessment and a Grantaura reviewer will look at your business situation and identify which categories align with your financial documentation, and where your narrative has gaps before you submit. If you’re unsure about a criterion – particularly whether your income situation satisfies the full-time rule or how to frame financial need without over-disclosing – you can book a live 1-on-1 consultation with a grant expert. If the tool flags ineligibility, we’ll surface related grants for women CPG founders that may be a better fit right now. Starting with the donor’s application portal is not the first step.

Why eight separate categories changes your strategy

The program isn’t one pool of money distributed to the most compelling applicants. Each category has its own corporate sponsor, its own JotForm application link, and its own use-of-funds restriction. Win the Retirement grant? That money goes to retirement savings contributions – not inventory, not software. Win Healthcare? Health insurance premiums and medical costs, including mental health services. The categories are structurally separate. Which matters because choosing the wrong one – applying for Digital Marketing when your most urgent and documentable gap is actually healthcare coverage – means competing with applicants who have a stronger alignment between their financial situation and the category’s stated purpose.

The sponsor-category alignment is not incidental. Alera Group, an insurance firm, funds Business Insurance. Alliant, a financial services company, funds Retirement. 1919 Investment Counsel funds Business Tools. These sponsors chose categories adjacent to their business areas. That pattern holds for how the rubric likely weights category-fit evidence, even if scoring weights aren’t published.

What 2025 winners reveal about category fit

Eight women received grants in the 2025 cycle. Beverly Malbranche of Caribbrew – a Caribbean-inspired coffee brand – won Business Tools. Shante Frazier of WellCapped, a hair wellness CPG line, won Retirement. Ella Wahlestedt of Layermor Fragrance won Business Insurance. Lydda Gonzalez of Josephine’s Baking Co. won Healthcare. Sisters Lexx and Livv Mills of Stursi won Professional Services. Chiara Munzi and Izzy Gorton of ChiChi Foods won Digital Marketing. Jill Weissman of Beyond the Bib and Miranda Tripp of Tuck and Bundle rounded out the eight.

None of these are nationally distributed brands. They’re founders at real operating stages. Lexx Mills captured something the committee clearly rewards: the Enthuse Foundation’s support, she said, created space for Stursi to build “strategically rather than reactively.” That framing – strategic versus reactive – is a useful guide for your own use-of-funds narrative. The committee isn’t funding launches or pivots. They’re funding the gaps that keep a working founder from building with intention.

Category diversity matters here. Each category produced one winner. That means your competition in any given category is not 1,300 applicants – it’s the subset of those applicants who applied to your same category. In a cycle where applicants averaged 2.5 submissions each, the question becomes: which categories can you build the most defensible financial need case for?

Q: Can I apply to more than one grant category in the same cycle?
A: Historical program data strongly suggests yes. In the documented third-year cycle, 1,300 applicants submitted 3,200 total applications – an average of 2.5 per person – and the foundation’s own press materials from that cycle described founders applying across multiple grants. However, the current 2026 donor page does not explicitly re-state this policy, and only one award is possible per applicant per cycle even if multiple applications are submitted. Verify directly at enthusefoundation.org before committing to multiple submissions. If you are pursuing more than one category, each application needs a distinct narrative tied to that specific category’s stated purpose – not a copy-paste.

The full-time rule

This is the requirement most applicants miss on a first read. Your CPG business must be your full-time job. Not a promising side project. Not a product line you run alongside a corporate salary. Full-time. The foundation has held this requirement since the program launched in 2018, and finalist selection involves W2 documentation – meaning the verification isn’t just narrative. Your tax documents tell their own story about where your primary income comes from.

What counts as full-time? The main program page doesn’t define an income threshold. The Planet & Purpose sub-grant specifies $5,000 minimum revenue, but no equivalent floor is published for the other seven categories. What the W2 reveals is whether the CPG business reads as your primary occupation or a secondary one. If that question has a complicated answer for your situation, it’s worth a short conversation before you invest hours in application writing.

Q: What counts as a CPG business for this program?
A: Consumer packaged goods means tangible products consumers purchase and use regularly – food, beverages, personal care items, household goods. Services businesses, software companies, and digital-only products don’t qualify. Your product must be physical and consumer-facing. If your business sits on the boundary – say, a hybrid product-service model – a consultation can help you assess eligibility before you invest application time.

Q: How is “full-time” assessed if my CPG revenue is still growing?
A: The donor page requires the business to be your full-time job but doesn’t publish a revenue threshold for most categories. The W2 requested at finalist stage provides the practical check – it shows where your primary income comes from. If you’re in a transition year and the answer isn’t clean, that’s exactly the kind of borderline situation worth talking through with a grant expert before you apply. Book a live consultation if that describes your situation.

How the rubric actually works

Three criteria. Published. No scoring weights disclosed. Demonstrated financial need. Strength of interview and written answers. A clear plan for use of the grant funds. That’s what the donor page says. What it doesn’t tell you is how a strong financial need case interacts with a weak use-of-funds plan – whether one can compensate for the other, or whether all three must clear a minimum threshold before any application advances.

The use-of-funds plan is where most applications lose ground, and it’s almost never obvious to the person writing it. There’s a real difference between describing what the money would cover and making the financial argument for why this specific gap exists, what it costs, and what closing it changes. “Retirement savings” is not a plan. “Establishing a SEP-IRA for the first time after three years of deferred savings, contributing $2,500 this fiscal year as the first installment toward a viable retirement account” is a plan. The rubric scores clarity. Vague descriptions of benefit don’t score well against specific financial gap arguments.

Financial need framing has its own trap. Over-disclosing hardship can inadvertently raise questions about whether the business is viable. The framing has to hold a balance: a real structural gap, a real plan to close it, and a real business that’s going somewhere. That balance is a judgment call – not a checklist item – which is why reviewers who’ve seen these applications before catch things that self-review misses.

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Q: When are finalists notified about the interview?
A: The foundation doesn’t publish a specific finalist notification date. The timeline shows recipients notified in June 2026, with interviews occurring after applications close and before that date.

Q: Do I submit my W2 with my initial application?
A: No. Based on the program structure and the Planet & Purpose sub-grant documentation, W2 submission is a finalist-stage requirement – triggered upon selection, not included upfront. Have it ready, but it doesn’t go in your initial submission.

The 2026 grant categories

Seven categories have confirmed use-of-funds descriptions for 2026. The eighth – Morgan Stanley – lists its purpose as “to be determined” on the donor page as of March 2026. The application link routes through Inspira Marketing’s veterans platform, which suggests a possible veterans focus, but the foundation has not confirmed this for the current cycle. Check the donor page for any update before the main deadline.

The category list changes annually. When a sponsor renews, the category returns. When sponsors shift, categories disappear – and new ones appear. The 2025 program included a $10,000 Operating Grant and a $10,000 Veterans and Military Spouses Grant, both widely listed across grant directories. Neither appears in the confirmed 2026 lineup. Any directory still listing those as available for 2026 is working from last year’s data.

Q: What happened to the Operating Grant and Veterans Grant from 2025?
A: Both grants – the $10,000 Amazon-sponsored Operating Grant and the $10,000 Veterans and Military Spouses Grant – are not in the confirmed 2026 program listing. The program changes annually based on sponsor participation. The Morgan Stanley grant, which may carry a veterans focus based on its application link, is listed at $2,500 with a TBD purpose for 2026.

Q: Why does the program structure change every year?
A: Each category is funded by a specific corporate sponsor. When a sponsor renews, the category returns. When sponsors change, categories shift – which is why the 2024 program included a Childcare Grant that doesn’t appear in 2026. If you’re planning for a future cycle, the category you need may not exist in the next round.

Q: Is the Planet & Purpose grant part of the main April 27 deadline?
A: No. Planet & Purpose operates on its own earlier timeline with additional requirements – product samples, a required webinar, and specific documentation obligations. Based on available sources, its application window may have already closed for 2026. Verify current status directly at enthusefoundation.org/planet-and-purpose before attempting to apply.

Who the foundation is

The Enthuse Foundation launched in 2018 as the nonprofit arm of Enthuse Marketing Group, a New York-based marketing agency. Co-founders Kim Lawton, CEO of Enthuse Marketing, and Kristy Snyder, Chief People Officer, built the program around one observation: women founders were less likely to receive significant business funding, and early-stage capital networks were still largely structured in ways that disadvantaged them. The foundation runs the annual grant program, an annual pitch competition, and community programming. Board leadership includes Lisa Petrella as Vice Chair and Clayton Samaroo CPA as Treasurer alongside outside directors Katie Dunn and Jack Edwards.

Since inception, the foundation has distributed well over $100,000 across both programs. The 2025 grant cycle alone totaled $37,000. The grant program and pitch competition are separate – prior winners of either are ineligible for both going forward.

Q: Is this the same as the Enthuse Foundation Pitch Competition?
A: No. The Pitch Competition is a separate annual program with a different format – an in-person event in New York. This is the grant program. Prior winners of either one are permanently ineligible for both.

Q: Is there an application fee?
A: No.

What a Grantaura reviewer does that the donor page cannot

The donor page tells you the categories, the eligibility rules, and the rubric. What it cannot do: assess whether your specific financial documentation creates a stronger case in the Healthcare category or the Professional Services category. Identify the phrasing in your use-of-funds plan that sounds specific to you but reads as generic to a reviewer who sees hundreds. Prepare you for the finalist interview – there are no published prep materials from the foundation. Flag financial need framing that inadvertently raises business viability questions instead of closing them.

Those are the friction points that determine whether a technically eligible application advances or doesn’t. Expert review at that stage is not about re-explaining eligibility. It’s about catching the judgment-call errors that self-review misses.

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Related grants for women CPG founders

If the Enthuse program isn’t the right fit – wrong timing, wrong category match, business not quite full-time yet – these programs serve overlapping audiences with different structures and requirements. The Amber Grant runs monthly with no CPG restriction, making it the most natural parallel application for a founder already assembling materials. The Santander X Cultivate Grant targets food and beverage CPG specifically. The Women Founders Grant has a broader eligibility profile that doesn’t carry the full-time requirement.

Terms specific to this program

• Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG): Tangible products consumers purchase and use regularly – food, beverages, personal care, household goods. Services businesses, software companies, and digital products don’t qualify for this program. Your product must be physical and consumer-facing.
• Category Grant: In this program, a grant tied to one specific type of business or personal expense with its own sponsor, JotForm application, and use-of-funds restriction. You cannot redirect funds from one category to cover a different expense.
• Use-of-Funds Plan: A required narrative section of the application explaining exactly how you will spend the grant money. One of three scored rubric criteria. Generic descriptions of benefit score lower than specific financial arguments connecting dollars to named gaps and outcomes.
• Financial Need: One of three rubric criteria. Not defined with a published income threshold – evaluated through written application and finalist interview and, in some categories, through W2 documentation at finalist stage. The framing challenge: documenting a real structural gap without inadvertently suggesting the business is not viable.
• W2 Form: Tax document issued by an employer reporting annual wages. Required at finalist stage – confirmed for Planet & Purpose, likely for other categories. Also the document through which the foundation verifies that CPG is the applicant’s full-time occupation.
• Application Window: The period during which all main program category applications accept submissions. Opened March 9, closes April 27, 2026 for the 2026 cycle. Planet & Purpose operated on a separate earlier timeline – verify directly.
• Finalist Interview: The second stage of the application process, following initial written review. Scored on the same rubric as the written application. No prep materials are published by the foundation. Applicants who treat the written submission as the finish line are typically unprepared for follow-up questions about their use-of-funds rationale.
• New Vendor Forms: Required administrative onboarding paperwork that grant recipients must complete for the foundation to issue payment. A post-selection step, separate from the application itself.
• Prior Funding Exclusion: Permanent ineligibility for anyone who previously received Enthuse Foundation money through either the Grant Program or the Pitch Competition. Not a waiting period – a permanent bar.
• Sponsor-Category Alignment: The structural feature of this program where each grant category is funded by a specific corporate sponsor with adjacent business interests. Alera Group funds Business Insurance. Alliant funds Retirement. This alignment is why categories change annually – when a sponsor doesn’t return, that category disappears.
• Planet & Purpose: The only Enthuse category awarding $5,000. Requires that the environmental component be integral to product design or business operations, not a peripheral initiative. Operates on its own earlier timeline with additional requirements including product samples and a required webinar. Sponsored by KSI Foundation.
• Morgan Stanley Grant: Listed at $2,500 for 2026 with purpose “to be determined.” Application routes through Inspira Marketing’s veterans platform. Check the donor page for criteria updates before the main deadline.

About Imran

Imran Ahmad founded Grantaura to help small business owners and entrepreneurs find and win grants without guesswork or filler. His editorial approach treats grant research as a decision-support exercise – every listing starts with primary sources and ends with the specific facts that actually change how you apply. He’s reviewed hundreds of grant applications and knows where careful, prepared applicants still stumble: not on eligibility, but on the judgment calls that separate advancing submissions from rejected ones. Read more about Imran or book a live 1-on-1 consultation to talk through your grant strategy.