USA Scholarships
Foundation Grant Guides
Foundation Grants
Guides for grants made by private foundations and funds. Most go to organisations rather than to individuals, and most turn on fit with a funder's stated priorities rather than on academic record. Each guide sets out what the money is for, the grant sizes on offer, how the application runs, and the exclusion list that quietly decides the majority of proposals.
Horowitz Foundation Grant 2026 - $10,000 for PhDs
The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy gives $10,000 to PhD candidates at the dissertation stage whose research speaks to contemporary social policy. The money arrives in two parts: $7,500 when you are selected, and $2,500 once the project is finished. Applications close on 1 December 2026 at 11:59pm EST, which is also the deadline for your recommender to file, and winners are announced the following June. Eligibility is tight in one direction and unusually open in another. You must be a current PhD or DrPH candidate who has defended a proposal or had a topic approved, and anyone who already holds a PhD is out. But there is no citizenship rule and no institutional one: applicants can come from any country and any university in the world. The application itself is short, built around a 750-word project description.
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.