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ACA empowers camps to create quality experiences that build a world of belonging and growth. ACA:
- is the voice for all camps across the United States by promoting the educational and developmental benefits of a camp experience
- represents camp in Washington, D.C., and state houses around the country
- educates camps in key aspects of camp operation, particularly in areas related to program quality, health, and safety of campers and staff
- provides funds development resources to help camps with fundraising
- supports parents in making decisions for their children by sharing our proprietary research, resources, and by accrediting camps
ACA can do all of this through both the support of ACA member camps and through the generosity of people, foundations, and organizations across the country who value the power of camp. Please join in this important work with a gift to ACA. We are stronger together.
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Disaster Assistance Scholarship Fund
Camp is a place to create belonging and growth. These experiences are becoming increasingly crucial in our evolving climate that has brought unprecedented weather events across the country. With growing threats of displacement from wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and more, families across the country need camps - their summer homes - now more than ever.
That is why ACA created the Disaster Assistance Scholarship Fund. Through your generous support, families will be able to return to their trusted camps, even in the midst of being displaced by these natural disasters. The Disaster Assistance Scholarship Fund is creating the stability needed to ensure that camps throughout ACA are given the financial support they need to help their children always come back home to camp.
Camps will apply for these funds. When applications are open, it will be announced here. Anticipation is Summer 2026.
Endowment Support
The American Camping Foundation (ACF) is charged with the growth, preservation, and distribution of assets to benefit and support ACA. Include ACA in your estate with a planned gift to ACF.
More Giving Options
Mail a check, donate stock, give from an IRA or Donor Advised Fund (DAF). There are many ways you can help camps transform the lives of children, teens, and families including:
Donor Bill of Rights
For more information about how you can help ACA achieve our mission and vision, contact Marna Redding, [email protected] or 765-349-3529.
The American Camp Association is registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Contributions to the ACA are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Annual Giving Fund
Invest in Camp, Invest in Children
Making a contribution to the American Camp Association’s Annual Fund safeguards the future of the camp experience for thousands of deserving children each year.
Through accreditation, leadership, education and promotion, the ACA endeavors to enrich the lives of children and prepare them to be the leaders of tomorrow.
We do a great deal with the 50 percent of camp fees that come to the national office, but there is so much more that can be done and that you want to see accomplished.
Your dollars keep the framework of the ACA strong so, like a proud parent, it can effectively represent the camps in the ACA family and spread the word about the crucial life experiences they have to offer children of every background.
Your belief, commitment, and continued giving to the American Camp Association ensure that our collective and powerful voice on behalf of the camp experience is heard by all.
Thank you for your support.
Another Way to Give
Experience a taste of the fun kids have at camp. Attend one of ACA’s annual fund-raising events. Come and enjoy the camaraderie of friends, celebrate a mutual commitment to the belief in the camp experience, and a portion of the event registration fee will go to the Annual Fund.
For more information on how you can help change a child's life, contact [email protected] or 765-342-8456, ext. 305.
Photo courtesy of Camp Good Days & Special Times, Branchport, NY.
ACA Camper Scholarship Program — For Camps
Building Bridges of Understanding
The camp experience has the unique ability to break down economic, racial, geographic, religious, ethnic and social barriers. Camp celebrates diversity and promotes understanding. And open-hearted children become open-minded adults.
The American Camp Association invites you as an ACA-Accredited® camp to take an active role in promoting unity and an appreciation of differences among your campers. The ACA Camper Scholarship Program was designed to help ACA-accredited camps do that.
Each year, participating camps give scholarships to campers who cannot afford the entire camp fee and whose presence at camp will broaden the composition of the camp community.
Are you a parent or family member looking for scholarships?
Please review some information and tips about affording camp.
Steps for Camps
- If you are an ACA-accredited camp, you are eligible. To get started, you must develop the benchmarks by which your scholarship recipients will be evaluated and selected. Here is a sample list of benchmarks you may use as you consider your camp's benchmarks. You will also fill out a Camp Scholarship Agreement. Submit both to Andrea Stearley at [email protected].
- Solicit contributions from parents, businesses, organizations, and foundations. Free brochures describing the ACA Campership Program are available for distribution in soliciting donations, along with some tips on how to write an informational letter to go with the brochure. All donor checks must be made payable to the ACA Campership Program with your camp's name in the lower left memo line. Checks may be sent directly to ACA, or you may collect and forward them.
- For online donations, you can add this link to your website: http://www.acacamps.org/campership.
- If you would like to offer recurring gift-giving, you may also add this link to your website: https://acacamps.formstack.com/forms/aca_camper_scholarship_program_for_camps_recurring.
- Here is an example of what one of our program camps does on their website: https://bar717.com/donations.
- ACA credits funds received to your camp's account* and routes a donor acknowledgment for each gift back to you so you can attach a personal "thank you" to the donor. Note: Camp owners and operators may not make contributions to their own camp's scholarship fund.
- Select your scholarship recipients. Camp directors must complete an online application for each scholarship. Relatives of a camp’s owner, operator, or employees are not eligible for scholarships, nor may the individual choosing the scholarship recipients be a donor or be influenced by a donor.
- The ACA issues a check and account balance statement within fourteen working days of receiving the participating camp’s request for scholarship funds. The total amount requested cannot exceed the amount in your camp’s account.
Invite diversity into your camp and build a bridge of understanding that stands the test of time and proves it is the compassion we have in common that bonds us together as human beings.
* A 7.5 percent administration fee will be assessed on all campership contributions at the time they are credited to a camp's account.
Contact ACA's development department at 765-349-3305 or [email protected] for more information on how you can help change a child's life, brochures, applications, or for general information about joining the scholarship program.
American Camping Foundation
The Foundation Board includes members who serve on the ACA Board of Directors and are appointed by the ACA Board of Directors. ACF also elects independent members to serve on its board.
ACF meets three times a year to address issues facing ACA and to determine how best the foundation can support ACA. We are fortunate to have the foundation as a resource and guide for the benefit of our membership association.
2025-2026 ACF Leadership
- Anne Derber, Chair
- Will Pierce
- Andy Shlensky
- Tony Stein
- Steve Suddeth
- Liz Fogel
- Steve Baskin, Chair, ACA Board of Directors
- Don Cheley, Emeritus
The Acorn Society
The Acorn Society is our membership society that recognizes donors who have made an outright gift to the foundation or included ACA in their estate plans.
Kruger Endowment
The Kruger Endowment is part of ACF and was established to honor Joe Kruger, a camping great and volunteer who brought a child-centered approach to camp.
The Acorn Society
Remember your first camp experience? Remember laughing and singing camp songs at the top of your lungs? Remember the fast friends you made splashing around in the water and galloping down the straightaway in a head-to-head relay? Remember what it was like just to be a kid?
You can help the American Camp Association (ACA) ensure the future of camp by becoming a member of The Acorn Society. Membership is simple! Include ACA in your estate planning and/or make outright gifts to American Camping Foundation (ACF) or the Kruger Endowment of the ACF greater than $25,000 ensures the educational, spiritual, physical, and social opportunities camp offers will continue for generations to come. Gifts over $25,000 should be made within five calendar years.
Members of The Acorn Society are invited to an annual gathering at the ACA national conference and honored for their significant financial commitment to the future of the camp experience.
The Acorn Society's crest is a mighty oak. Its vast branches symbolize the network of devoted individuals it takes to make camp a reality for so many deserving children. Its strong trunk speaks to society members' strength and leadership in character, compassion and commitment — the same traits the ACA strives to instill in every camper.
The Acorn Society is the essence of the expression that "a little acorn can become a mighty oak." Plant a seed and watch the future of the camp experience flourish.
- Acorn Society Membership Form (PDF)
- Acorn Society Brochure (PDF)
- Make an Annual Fund Donation Online
For more information on how you can help change a child's life, contact Marna Redding, Chief Development Officer, at [email protected] or 765-342-8456, ext. 529.
Planned Giving
Sharing your good fortune with the American Camp Association through a planned gift means playing an enormous role in changing the lives of countless children for the better and perpetuating the joy the camp experience offers for generations. The most common forms of planned giving include:
Naming ACA as the Beneficiary of a Life Insurance Policy
You can leave a lasting legacy by naming ACA as sole or partial beneficiary of your life insurance policies. The amount of the death benefit contributed is deductible from your estate and inheritance taxes at death.
Gifting through a Life Insurance Policy — Receive an Income Tax Deduction
You may choose to make an irrevocable assignment of your life insurance policy to ACA, entitling you to an immediate income tax deduction for either the policy's fair market value or the net premiums paid, whichever is less. Contributions to pay subsequent premiums will result in additional income tax deductions.
Naming ACA as a Beneficiary in your Will or Living Trust
You can choose to assign a trustee to oversee transfer of funds from your estate to ACA upon your death. This ensures transfer is made according to your wishes.
Memorial and Tribute Gifts
You can honor a loved one or a camp special to you through a donation in their name to ACA. Memorial and Tribute gifts support the ACA's mission. Memorial and Legacy gifts of less than $10,000 go to the Kruger Endowment fund of the American Camping Foundation.
For more information on how you can help change a child's life, contact Marna Redding, Chief Development Officer, at [email protected] or 765-342-8456, ext. 529.
ACA Government Relations Working to Support Camps
ACA government relations and advocacy efforts achieved the following for camps.
After reading through these activities, please consider using the benefits calculator to determine how much ACA has saved you over the past three years and then consider donating 5-10 percent of that amount to ensure ACA can continue to help camps into the future.
Inclusion of Summertime Dates in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)
The original PPP program application did not allow the use of a summer date to calculate the loan, preventing camps from maximizing their loan amount. After significant advocacy and education from ACA, the Small Business Administration (SBA) agreed and added a summer date field on April 27, 2020.
Additionally, ACA successfully advocated for the 2020 federal COVID relief bill to include a provision that allows any business to modify their original loan one time to take advantage of a summer date field to calculate the loan amount.
Second PPP Draw
The 2020 relief bill also allowed businesses with fewer than 300 employees that had been significantly impacted by the pandemic an opportunity to have a second draw on the PPP program.
Overnight camps were also allowed to draw three months' worth of payroll instead of two. The organized camp was the only industry allowed to draw an additional month of funding.
Tax-Free PPP Relief
The original PPP program did not allow businesses to deduct any of the expenses covered by the loan. ACA successfully advocated for the original intent of the bill, which was to allow for the deduction of these expenses, essentially increasing the camp’s financial relief.
Separated Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and PPP
Initially, camps that received an EIDL grant of up to $10,000 were required to deduct that amount from the forgivable amount of their PPP loan. The new relief bill eliminated this requirement, so camps could keep their EIDL emergency grant dollars.
Free Covid Testing from CDC for 2022
ACA worked with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), state, local, and territorial health departments to allocate 5 million rapid, point-of-care, and over-the-counter tests per month to schools and camps serving students aged K-12 (up to 1.25 million tests per week) in the summer of 2022.
In addition, ACA successfully advocated prioritizing camp staff as emergency workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine along with other essential workers.
Camp-School Partnerships - Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER)
ACA is currently working with the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) to provide incentives for camps and school districts to engage in partnerships over the next two years. This initiative provides 10 camps with $50,000 per camp over 2 years and to date in 2022 has served 1,643 students across eight states.
We Need Your Support
Together, we are building the future by ensuring camps provide quality programs. ACA’s government relations work has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of support for camps. Our goals continue to be ambitious. We need your support. Donate to ACA’s Annual Fund Campaign.
We hope you will commit to making an annual donation to ACA for 5-10 percent of the amount you have benefited due to ACA’s public policy and government relations work. Use the benefits calculator to generate your savings.
Send a Child to Camp — Build a World of Growth and Belonging
Change a Life.
Just $35 will send a child to camp for one day and $500 for one week. Just one camp experience can positively change a child’s life forever.
Make a Donation Online
Children are our future, and the skills learned and relationships fostered at so many camps throughout the country are often life-changing stepping stones on the road to adulthood. Children come to camp from all walks of life, eager to learn, yearning to make new friends, ready to take on new challenges and discover gifts they didn't know they had.
Parents
The American Camp Association (ACA) believes the benefits of the camp experience are priceless, but we also realize that parents' pockets aren't bottomless. ACA also believes there is a camp for every child and every budget, and we want to show you the opportunities available.
ACA's Find a Camp has the most complete list of camps available. Finding out how to afford camp is easy—and there's plenty of help. There's a camp for just about every budget. Fees range from less than $100 to more than $1,500 per week for ACA-accredited overnight and day camps. There are a number of different options parents can turn to when trying to provide a camp experience for their child.
Camps
The American Camp Association works to support camps in their efforts to provide camp scholarships for families who may not be able to fund a camp experience for their child. Through ACA, accredited camps are eligible to fund scholarships for their campers in a number of ways.
Donors
ACA believes strongly in the value of the camp experience and wants to ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend camp. We understand that many families cannot afford to send their child to camp. This is why we have established the Send a Child to Camp Fund as an opportunity for caring individuals or organizations who also believe in the value of camp to support camp scholarships at ACA Accredited camps.
Campers Say
I learned that being different doesn't mean that you are bad, because a rainbow can't be only one color.
Camp celebrates diversity and promotes tolerance. It holds a mirror up so children can see, no matter what their color, gender, or socioeconomic circumstances, that who they are is beautiful inside and out.
I learned at camp that I should treat others the way I want to be treated.
Camp gets kids out in nature. Unplugged from the computer, the videogames, the cell phone, they gain an appreciation for the natural environment and discover the wisdom and fun it has to offer.
It was fun . . . really good and I wish my friends could go because you are learning but at the same time you are having fun.
You can change a child's life today: Make a donation to sponsor a child's camp experience. $0.82 of every dollar you donate to the American Camp Association’s Send a Child to Camp Fund goes to send children to camp across the country.
Throw the doors to a brighter future wide open and help shape the leaders of tomorrow. Send a child to camp today.
For more information on how you can help change a child's life, contact [email protected] or 765-342-8456, ext. 305.
Photo courtesy of Cheley Colorado Camps, Estes Park, CO.
Gifts of Stock and/or Bonds
Gifting stocks and/or bonds to ACA may actually cost you less than the same amount in a monetary gift. If the securities have appreciated and have been held by you for at least 12 months, they may be deductible in an amount up to 30 percent of your adjusted gross income. Amounts in excess of 30 percent may be deducted on tax returns for up to five additional years. The ACA can only accept marketable securities.
Instructions for Donating Stock to the American Camp Association:
- Please direct your gift to:
Charles Schwab & Co.
Account: American Camp Association Account # 1877-0661
DTC # 0164 Code 403
- Inform the American Camp Association (ACA) of the impending donation, before the transfer is completed. This will allow ACA to know what the donation is for when it arrives. Contact Andrea Stearley at [email protected] or (765) 349-3305. Include the following information:
- Name and address of the donor
- What is being donated, i.e. number shares and the name of the stock
- The purpose of the gift.
- When the transaction is expected to be completed
- If you have any questions, please contact: Christa Cassidy, [email protected] or at 765-349-3315.