What we fund
Four kinds of opportunity
The 21st Century Fund for Delaware's Children funds experiences for children and young people up to age 21 who are receiving services from a Delaware state agency or community program. We group what we pay for into four areas, but the categories are a guide rather than a rulebook — if a request helps a child discover what they are good at, it is worth asking about.
Sports and athletics
A place on a team, for the whole season.
Sport is often the first thing a child loses when a family's circumstances change, and it is rarely one payment. There is a registration fee, then cleats, then a uniform deposit, then the cost of getting to away games. A family that can cover the first of those may still be defeated by the third, and a child who drops out in October does not usually come back in the spring.
We fund the whole season rather than a piece of it. That means league and club registration, camp fees, protective equipment, footwear, uniforms, and the travel costs that come with a competitive schedule. Where a team has fundraising obligations that a child cannot meet, we will look at those too.
How to ask: Ask before registration closes. Seasons have hard deadlines and we would rather hear from you early than be asked to fix it afterwards.
What this covers
Music and the arts
An instrument in a child's hands, and someone to teach them.
A school may lend a trumpet for a term but not for the summer. A child may be offered a place in a youth orchestra, a dance company, or a theatre production and then find that the place comes with fees, a costume, or a set of tools nobody mentioned. Talent gets identified far more often than it gets funded.
We pay for lessons, rentals, and the materials that make it possible to keep going once the initial enthusiasm has been proven. Music is the most common request in this category, but it is not the only one: art supplies, camera equipment, studio time, and theatre and dance fees all belong here.
How to ask: Tell us how long the commitment runs. We would rather fund a year of lessons than a single month that ends just as a child starts to improve.
What this covers
Milestones and belonging
The days a young person remembers being part of.
This is the category people are most surprised by and the one that matters most to the young people themselves. A prom ticket is not an essential in any budget sense. To a seventeen-year-old who has spent years being the child with the complicated situation, being at prom is the difference between belonging to their year group and watching it from outside.
The same is true of the class trip, the yearbook, the senior photo, the graduation gown, the class ring. Each is small, each has a deadline, and each is a moment a young person will either be part of or will remember not being part of. We treat these as legitimate and we fund them without asking anyone to justify why it matters.
How to ask: These have unmovable dates. Contact us as soon as the date is known — a prom ticket funded the week after prom helps nobody.
What this covers
Talents and interests
Whatever it is this particular child is good at.
Not every interest fits a category. A young person may want to learn to code, get a food handler's certificate, take a driving course that opens up work, attend a robotics camp, or buy the tools for a trade they have discovered they are good at. These requests are individual by nature, and a fund built only around sports and music would turn most of them down.
We would rather be asked. If a young person has found something they are serious about and the barrier is money, describe it to us in plain terms. The test we apply is simple: does this help the child find out what they are capable of?
How to ask: Say what the young person wants to do and why it matters to them. Unusual requests are welcome; we assess them on the child, not the category.
What this covers
Who is eligible
Children and young people up to age 21 who are receiving services from a Delaware state agency or community program.
In practice that means a young person connected to Delaware’s child services system or to a community program operating in New Castle County, Kent County, Sussex County. There is no income form to complete and no means test for the child to sit through. The referring adult’s account of the circumstances is what we work from.
We do not fund a family’s general living costs, rent, utilities, medical bills, or debts. Those needs are real and urgent, but other organisations are far better equipped for them and we would be a poor substitute.
We also do not make grants to organisations for their operating costs. Every grant is tied to a named child and a specific opportunity.
Ready to ask about a child?
Send us the child’s first name and age, the program they work with, what the opportunity is, what it costs, and the date it needs to be paid. We aim to reply within five business days.
Make a request