We are excited to announce that non-profit, civil society, and public interest organizations are now eligible to join Cloudflare for Startups. Under this new program, participating organizations will be eligible to receive up to $250,000 in Cloudflare credits — these can be used for a variety of our developer and core products, including databases & storage, compute services, AI, media, and performance and security.
Non-profit organizations and startups have a lot in common. In addition to being powered by small groups of dedicated, resilient, and creative people, they are constantly navigating funding shortages, staffing challenges, and insufficient tools. Most importantly, both are unrelenting in their efforts to do more with less; maximizing the impact of every dollar spent and hour invested.
Cloudflare's developer services and our startup programs were designed for exactly these challenges. Our goal is to make it easier for anyone to write code, build applications, and launch new ideas anywhere in the world. Put another way, we want to help small teams have a global impact.
All are welcome to apply. The application period for this new program will open today and runs until December 1. After the closing of the application period, Cloudflare will review the applications we’ve received and make award decisions based on project description, requirements, and impact.
If you are a non-profit organization interested in working with Cloudflare to build new, innovative full-stack applications that are secure, performant, near-infinite scale, and optimized for AI training, inference, and security for free, apply today!
Coming together in a challenging year
2025 has been a difficult year for non-profits. According to a recent survey of non-profit leaders, decreased government funding, an uncertain economic environment, and greater demand for services have made it increasingly difficult for many organizations to operate. Although some private foundations have responded by increasing their grant making and other contributions, significant gaps remain.
We also know that the non-profit sector has significant tech needs. The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) reports that almost half of non-profits surveyed believed that they spent too little on technology, with 77% reporting the primary barrier was lack of available budget. Only 14% reported receiving grants to specifically help with technology projects.
Many organizations are facing difficult choices. And, sadly, many have been forced to discontinue operations.
However, we have also seen remarkable resilience and determination first-hand. Many of the organizations we work with regularly are doing the incredibly difficult work of diversifying their funding, reshaping their organizations, and finding new ways to accomplish their missions — including greater emphasis on and investment in new technologies. We also continue to see dynamic growth of new non-profit startups working to step in and fill gaps to help solve problems in new, innovative ways.
We want to help.
Cloudflare is the place for startups
Cloudflare is the best place on the Internet to build and launch a startup. In part because our developer tools were designed to help small teams build big things. Building on Cloudflare's network provides direct access to scalable computing power, storage, media, and AI needed to build full-stack applications. And, because applications built with Cloudflare are automatically deployed to our global network, developers can spend less time worrying about infrastructure and performance and more time on their ideas.
More than 4,000 startups have received free credits since Cloudflare launched its startup program during 2024’s Birthday Week. Since 2024, 175 startups in 23 countries have also participated in Cloudflare's Workers Launchpad Program, which provides even more support and resources including hands-on assistance and training from Cloudflare engineers, introductions to our venture capital partners, and opportunities to present at Cloudflare Demo Days.
Impact organizations are often start-ups, too
Regardless of their size, non-profits and startups often share a similar mentality. They tend to be mission-driven, operate with limited resources, and are constantly forced to innovate and adapt to survive.
Above all, they rely on small teams to make an outsized impact.
We understand these challenges. Our developer services were designed to allow small teams to focus on ideas and code instead of the time-consuming aspects of managing a global network, security, and scaling. Building directly on the Cloudflare Network allows developers to instantly scale and deploy new technologies all over the world.
One example of a non-profit organization already building on Cloudflare is Kendraio. An independent non-profit organization that has built an open source, integration platform designed to help others solve problems. Kendraio creates user-friendly tools with customizable interfaces and no-code logic, allowing anyone to build complex functions across different applications. Their work on pilot projects demonstrates this, including a knowledge graph for diplomats working on nuclear disarmament, a shared wholesale database for independent bookstores, and a dashboard to simplify news subscriptions for readers and publishers.
Interested? Here’s how to apply
The application period to join Cloudflare's first class of non-profit organizations participating in Cloudflare for Startups is open now, and will close on December 1, 2025.
Cloudflare's Impact and Startup teams will review the applications and select a cohort of non-profit, civil society, and public interest organizations to participate in the program. These organizations will have the opportunity to receive up to $250,000 in Cloudflare credits, which can be used for certain usage-based services including databases & storage, compute services, AI, media, and performance & security tools. For full details, visit cloudflare.com/startups.
To qualify, organizations should meet the following criteria:
Applications for Cloudflare's first class of non-profit startup participants are open until December 1, 2025. This will be our first non-profit class to join our Startups program. However, we hope there will be more to follow. Keep checking the Cloudflare blog for more updates.
To apply, simply visit our application page and select the non-profit checkbox.