USA Scholarships
Professional Development Scholarship Guides
Professional Development Programs
Guides for funded professional development, leadership, and executive programs that don't lead to a degree but build skills and networks. Each guide covers eligibility, benefits, and the full application process.
Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship 2027 - $60,000 at HLS
The Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship for Law Teaching gives a recent law graduate a $60,000 annual stipend and a year in residence at Harvard Law School to write. The 2027 term runs 1 July 2027 through 30 June 2028, and applications close on Thursday 1 October 2026, with both letters of reference due the same day. You need a JD, LLM or SJD at the time of applying, a serious interest in legal scholarship, and a plan to go into law teaching. The Fellow prepares at least one major article for publication on a schedule agreed with the Lewis Committee, and can audit courses and attend workshops across the school. The programme was endowed in 1993 by Reginald F. Lewis, HLS class of 1968 and the first African American to build a billion-dollar company, and it exists to enhance diversity in the profession of legal educators.
UN Nippon Foundation Fellowship 2027 - Ocean Law
The United Nations-Nippon Foundation Fellowship on Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea gives mid-career government officials from developing states nine funded months split between two places. Phase one runs 24 March to 30 June 2027 at UN Headquarters in New York, working alongside the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. Phase two runs 1 July to 17 December 2027 as a research placement at an academic institution. The award covers a monthly stipend from the day you leave home until the day you finish, round-trip economy flights between home, New York and your host institution, Cigna health insurance, and a $600 book allowance for the second phase. Applications close on 13 September 2026 and results are announced in mid-December. You need to be between 25 and 45, hold at least a first degree, and be nominated by an authority who signs your form.
Columbia University Free Online Courses 2026 - ColumbiaX
Columbia University free online courses are published under ColumbiaX, the university's online learning initiative on edX, where every listed course can be audited at no cost and a verified certificate is available for a fee. The school page currently lists 28 courses drawn from Columbia Business School, Columbia Engineering, the Mailman School of Public Health, the history department and Teachers College, covering corporate finance, the maths behind AI, Python and data structures, pediatric HIV, child protection, climate science, US history and inclusive teaching. Nothing here behaves like a scholarship: no application form, no deadline, no committee, no GPA and no citizenship rule. Money only enters at the certificate, and edX financial assistance is the route to a discount on that fee.
UC Berkeley Free Online Courses 2027 - BerkeleyX on edX
UC Berkeley free online courses run through BerkeleyX on the edX platform, where every course can be audited at no cost and a verified certificate is available for a fee. Berkeley joined the edX consortium in 2012 and has since put more than 100 classes in front of 4 million learners across 150 countries and regions, from The Science of Happiness and Introduction to Python to Fundamentals of Economics, Academic and Business Writing and Psychedelics and the Mind. Nothing here works like a scholarship: there is no application, no deadline, no selection and no GPA, and enrolment is open all year. The closest thing to funding is edX financial assistance, which discounts the verified certificate fee for learners who would find it a hardship, applied for one course at a time. Auditing needs nothing but a free account.
Nathan Cummings Foundation Grant 2026 - $50k to $250k
The Nathan Cummings Foundation grant programme funds organisations working on racial, economic and environmental justice in the United States, with most grants between $50,000 and $250,000. The Letter of Inquiry portal is open year-round with rolling review, and staff aim to come back to applicants within 12 weeks. Three grant types run alongside each other: Venture Grants up to $100,000 for one year, Advancement Grants up to $250,000 a year for up to two years, and invitation-only Enterprise Grants above $250,000 a year for longer. Program Related Investments run separately at $250,000 to $750,000, usually repaid over three to seven years. Read the exclusion list before anything else, because NCF does not fund individuals, 501(c)(4) organisations, direct service work outside an advocacy strategy, campus or prison-based programmes, or conservation projects.
America's Future Development Fellowship 2026
The America's Future Development Fellowship 2026 is a six-week virtual seminar on nonprofit fundraising for the Fall 2026 cohort, run over Zoom on Monday evenings from 28 September to 9 November 2026. Applications close 7 September 2026 at 11:59 PM ET, with participants selected between 14 and 21 September. The curriculum covers the philosophy of private philanthropy alongside practical work on donor cultivation and stewardship, organisational development, major gifts, foundation relations and planned giving, led by a facilitator who runs a fundraising operation raising around $12 million a year. Two eligibility points decide most applications: you must reside in the United States, and America's Future selects for liberty-minded professionals committed to strengthening organisations in the liberty movement. No prior fundraising experience is needed, and attendance at all six sessions is mandatory.
Yale Peace Fellowship 2027 - Fully Funded at Yale
The Yale Peace Fellowship 2027 is a fully funded programme from the International Leadership Center at Yale University for rising leaders in conflict prevention, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconciliation. Applications for the 2027 cohort are open now and close 9 September 2026 at 14:00 EDT. Fellows take a week-long seminar at Yale in New Haven from 12 to 16 April 2027, bi-weekly virtual sessions from March through June, and a closing convening at Rose Castle in the UK from 14 to 18 June 2027. Travel, lodging and meals for both in-person weeks are covered and there are no direct programme costs, though a $20 application fee applies. One catch decides most applications: applicants should be citizens of a country other than the United States, and Yale typically looks for at least five years of significant professional experience.
Tech Journalism Fund 2026 - $5,000 to $25,000 Grants
The Tech Journalism Fund 2026 is Omidyar Network's project grant for US-based journalists reporting on technology and society, paying $5,000 to $25,000 towards the cost of a single resource-intensive story. Freelancers, staff reporters, editors and whole teams are eligible across any medium. The money covers reporting costs rather than salary: travel, research and fact-checking support, multimedia work, data access such as LexisNexis searches and government record requests, and a stipend for the reporting time itself. Priority goes to pitches on AI regulation and tech policy, investigations into the companies and people shaping the AI industry, the effect of AI on children and families, and how workers and unions are dealing with AI at work. Applications run on a rolling basis with no deadline and are usually reviewed within 30 days. Every funded project stays editorially independent and discloses the support.
Mental Health America Young Leaders Council 2027
The Mental Health America Young Leaders Council 2027 is a paid nine-month youth advocacy cohort running September 2026 to May 2027, and MHA is selecting just five young adults aged 18 to 25 for it. Members receive a $2,000 stipend, attend monthly 90-minute virtual sessions with experts, co-create a capstone project, and speak at the Mental Health America Conference in Washington DC on 8 and 9 October 2026 with travel and lodging paid. The 2026-2027 council focuses on financial well-being and access to meaningful work, set against the fact that almost 12 per cent of US youth are not in education, employment or training and 41 per cent of recent college graduates are underemployed. No degree, GPA or enrolment is required, only direct experience with programmes at that intersection. Applications close Friday 28 August 2026 with decisions by Friday 4 September.
HP Social Media Marketing Free Online Course 2026
The HP Social Media Marketing free online course 2026 is a short, self-paced training module from HP LIFE, the free learning platform run by the HP Foundation, and it ends with a certificate of completion that costs nothing. The course covers a range of social media marketing platforms and walks you through building a social media advertisement that actually reaches your target customers. Most learners finish in under an hour. There is no fee, no application, no deadline and no entry requirement: you create a free HP LIFE account, pick one of eight languages, work through the lessons, and download the certificate the moment you finish. More than 179,000 people have taken this one course, and it also works offline through the HP LIFE mobile app.