Do Hardware and Home Improvement Stores Donate to Fundraisers?

The large home improvement chains mostly fund building projects, not raffle prizes. The Home Depot Foundation gives through three grant programs — Veteran Housing Grants, Retool Your School for HBCUs, and Path to Pro trades training — and no longer lists a program aimed at school or event fundraisers. Lowe's funds renovations of community spaces through Community Impact Grants, nominated by the public during a yearly window. For Menards, Lumber Liquidators and Sears we found no published program at our last check. If you need a prize for an auction or raffle, a locally owned hardware store or garden center is usually the better ask; if you have a project to build, a grant may fit.

This guide is part of our fundraiser donation answers library. Each company below links to its page in our donor directory, which records what its own donation page says. For other big-box retailers, see do big-box stores like Lowe's, Target and Staples donate.

Start with what you need

The national chains

The Home Depot. The Home Depot Foundation focuses on the homes and lives of U.S. veterans, training skilled tradespeople, and communities affected by natural disasters. Its grants page lists Veteran Housing Grants, which go to nonprofits building or rehabilitating permanent supportive housing for veterans; Retool Your School, for campus projects at HBCUs; and Path to Pro trades training. The Community Impact Grants gift-card program that our page used to describe is no longer listed. None of these is a route to a raffle prize.

Lowe's. Lowe's Community Impact Grants pay for the physical improvement of a community space, such as a food pantry, park, local firehouse or a place for veterans to gather. Anyone who is a legal U.S. resident aged 21 or older can nominate a project during the annual window — in 2026 it ran from February to March — and the project must be within 30 miles of a Lowe's store. Lowe's selects up to 100 projects a year. If your school or group has a renovation in mind, that is the Lowe's route; it describes no product or gift-card donation for events.

Menards, Lumber Liquidators and Sears. At our last check we found no company-wide donation program for Menards, Lumber Liquidators or Sears. That is a record of what we found, not a refusal. Look on each company's own website for a community page before you write, and if you find none, ask the manager of your local store in person.

Garden centers and seed

A local garden center can be a better prize source than a big chain, and some publish how to ask. Donaldson's Greenhouse & Nursery in Hackettstown, New Jersey, considers donation requests to worthy causes from its local area. Download and complete its official request form — requests without the form are not considered — and give it ample time; it will tell you whether it can help.

Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Oregon, donates vegetable, flower and herb seed to local and national organizations once a year. Mail a written request on your letterhead describing your program and why you are asking. Requests are accepted all year, and seed ships in the fall or winter, so it suits a spring school garden better than an event a few weeks away.

Robotics teams and discount routes

John Deere no longer publishes general grant request guidelines. The open program its community page links to is John Deere FIRST Team Grants, for school or nonprofit robotics teams in a John Deere home community or with a John Deere employee mentor or coach. Funding can cover registration fees, robot kits and field setup kits in full or in part, through its Submittable portal.

Two home-goods companies offer discounts rather than donations. Ollie's gives eligible 501(c)(3)s a 15% discount certificate for one transaction at any Ollie's store, one per organization per year, expiring six months after issue. YETI says it cannot make in-kind product donations, but nonprofits with active 501(c)(3) status can buy select products at a discount for raffles, auctions and giveaways. Both help if your group has a budget to buy prizes; neither is a free item.

Asking a locally owned hardware store

A locally owned hardware store has no corporate program to point you to, so the owner or manager is the person who decides. Go in person at a quiet time, bring a one-page request with your tax ID, event date and purpose, and ask for one specific thing: a gift card, a tool set for a "fix-it" raffle basket, or garden supplies for a spring lot. Leave the page behind so they can decide after you have gone. The restaurant and local company ask sheet walks through that in-person ask, and our raffle basket ideas show how organizers build themed baskets around a few donated items.