Inaugural Fort Worth Innovation Challenge pairs grants with a year of coaching to strengthen families and support children in the care of relatives and other trusted adults.
Fort Worth, Texas – Flourish Fund announced five winners of its inaugural Fort Worth Innovation Challenge, awarding $200,000 in total to organizations working to prevent unnecessary family separation and strengthen kinship care, helping children remain connected to family, trusted caregivers, and their communities. Selected from 30 applicants, the winners were recognized at a celebration dinner in Fort Worth on October 29.
The 2026 Fort Worth Innovation Challenge winners
NewDay Services for Children & Families pairs professional family navigators with trained volunteer mentors to help parents work through housing, employment, and family challenges.
Our Father's Children supports children in kinship care and their caregivers through camps, retreats, and respite opportunities.
Safe Families for Children DFW brings churches, volunteers, and Family Coaches together into a Circle of Support around families before foster care is needed.
Southside Hornets Athletic Association uses youth sports to reach and strengthen whole families on Fort Worth's Southside and Eastside, building on 50 years in the community.
Together for Good works through local churches to give children short-term care with trained volunteer hosts while a parent advocate walks alongside the parent.
Each winner receives a one-year grant beginning in January 2027, paired with a year of coaching and consulting through Flourish Fund's partnership with Mission Increase. Churches, funders, and community partners in Fort Worth who want to be part of this work can learn more on Flourish Fund's website.
"Fort Worth has always called itself the place where the West begins. We think it can be the place where a better way of caring for children begins, too," said Dan Vogel, Founder and CEO of Flourish Fund. "Five years from now, we're praying for a Fort Worth where a family in crisis calls a church or a neighbor before a crisis deepens, and where every grandmother raising her grandkids has a church family that knows her name. These five organizations are already doing that work."
Flourish Fund chose Fort Worth as its first local community for this approach because of the strength of the city's leaders and institutions, the commitment of local churches and organizations, and a shared willingness to work together. Working alongside the local community, Flourish Fund helped develop a Five-Point Plan focused on preventing family separation, strengthening kinship care, matching children with placements that best fit their needs, mobilizing churches, and deepening community collaboration. The Innovation Challenge advances the first two.
More than 40 organizations helped shape the plan. With local partners, Flourish Fund has invested $575,000 in Tarrant County so far, including support for ACH Child and Family Services, investments in data and technology tools to improve placement decisions, local field-building organizations, a dedicated on-the-ground team, and this Challenge.
About Flourish Fund
Flourish Fund is a collaborative philanthropy fund solving problems that matter to the heart of God and to our neighbors, so that all may flourish. We bring together philanthropists, community leaders, social innovators, practitioners, and the Church to advance bold, community-informed strategies that address root causes, strengthen systems, and create lasting change. By aligning capital, expertise, and partnerships around shared goals, we seek to transform outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.
In Fort Worth, we bring people, funding, ideas, and community leadership together to strengthen Tarrant County's system of care for children and families.
Media contact: Dan Vogel, Founder & CEO, Flourish Fund (dan@flourishfund.org)