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The William T. Grant Foundation

Annual Giving
$20.0M
Grant Range
$25K - $1.0M
Decision Time
13mo
Success Rate
5%

The William T. Grant Foundation

Quick Stats

  • Annual Giving: $20 million
  • Success Rate: 5% (major research grants)
  • Decision Time: 10-15 months
  • Grant Range: $25,000 - $1,000,000
  • Geographic Focus: United States (youth ages 5-25)

Contact Details

For specific program inquiries, applicants are encouraged to review the Resources for Applicants webpage before submitting, though the foundation has limited capacity for pre-application consultations due to small staff size.

Overview

Founded in 1936, the William T. Grant Foundation has operated for nearly eighty years with an unwavering commitment to supporting social science research that improves the lives of young people. With approximately $406 million in assets as of 2021, the foundation awards about $20 million in grants annually. Under the leadership of President Adam Gamoran since 2013, the foundation has sharpened its focus on two critical areas: reducing inequality in youth outcomes and improving the use of research evidence in decisions affecting young people ages 5-25 in the United States. The foundation's strategic approach emphasizes beginning with questions rather than preconceptions, focusing on long-term fundamental challenges while recognizing that priorities must evolve to address contemporary issues. President Biden announced his intention in September 2024 to nominate Gamoran as director of the Institute of Education Sciences, underscoring the foundation's influence in the research and policy landscape.

Funding Priorities

Grant Programs

Research Grants on Reducing Inequality

  • Major Research Grants: $100,000 - $600,000 over 2-3 years (including up to 15% indirect costs)
  • Officers' Research Grants: $25,000 - $50,000 over 1-2 years (including up to 15% indirect costs)
  • Application deadlines: Three cycles annually (January, May, August for major grants; January and August for officers' grants at 3:00 PM ET)
  • Method: Fixed deadlines with letter of inquiry (LOI) process followed by invited full proposals

Research Grants on Improving Use of Research Evidence

  • Up to $1,000,000 over 2-4 years (including up to 15% indirect costs)
  • Examines how policymakers, agency leaders, and organizational managers better utilize research in decisions affecting youth-serving systems
  • Application deadlines: Fixed cycles (dates published annually)
  • Method: Two-stage process (LOI followed by invited full proposals)

William T. Grant Scholars Program

  • $425,000 over five years for early-career researchers
  • Supports career development for those conducting research on programs, policies, and practices affecting youth
  • 4-6 Scholars selected annually
  • Application reopens: Spring 2026
  • Method: Fixed deadline with detailed application process

Institutional Challenge Grant

  • Supports university-nonprofit research-practice partnerships
  • Strengthens infrastructure for collaborative research
  • Application method: Fixed deadlines (dates published annually)

Youth Service Improvement Grants (New York City only)

  • Supports NYC nonprofit organizations serving youth
  • Focuses on service quality enhancement and organizational capacity building
  • Reopens: January 2026
  • Method: Rolling or fixed deadlines depending on program stream

Priority Areas

Reducing Inequality in Youth Outcomes: The foundation funds research examining programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes. Priority is given to work addressing disparities based on race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status, language minority status, or immigrant origins. Secondary data analysis projects typically fall at the lower end of the funding range, while new data collection projects receive higher amounts.

Improving Use of Research Evidence: Research must address rich conceptualizations of the use of research evidence, theorizing about how to improve (not simply understand) evidence use, and include reliable and valid measures of research evidence use. Studies should examine decision-making in youth-serving systems including education, workforce development, child welfare, juvenile justice, and youth development programs.

Target Population: All research must involve young people ages 5-25 in the United States. The foundation particularly encourages proposals from historically underrepresented institutions including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribal colleges and universities, and minority-serving institutions.

What They Don't Fund

  • Non-research activities such as program implementation and operational costs
  • Building funds, fundraising drives, or endowment funds
  • General operating budgets
  • Scholarships or individual fellowships (except through the Scholars Program)
  • Research primarily documenting causes or consequences of inequality rather than testing solutions
  • Studies involving youth outside ages 5-25
  • Research conducted outside the United States
  • Graduate student-led projects (though graduate students can serve as Co-Principal Investigators)

Governance and Leadership

President: Adam Gamoran has served as President since 2013, providing strategic leadership and shaping the foundation's agenda. He emphasizes that "effective programs and policies can enhance young people's lives, and social science research can help us understand, build, and improve those that work best." Gamoran notes that "even today we fall short of Mr. Grant's vision of using research to make better decisions on programs and policies that support young people," underscoring the foundation's commitment to improving research evidence use. His leadership focuses on remaining "steadfast in our mission to support research to improve the lives of young people" while adapting to address the most pressing contemporary challenges.

Board Chair: Scott Evans serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees, having joined the board in 2013 and served as chair of the Finance and Investment Committee since 2018. He succeeded Russell Pennoyer, who chaired from 2015 to 2021.

Recent Board Appointments: The foundation has strengthened its governance with several recent trustee appointments including Geetanjali Gupta (Chief Investment Officer at The New York Public Library, appointed October 2024), Novisi Nirschl and William Hite (December 2023), Maria Cancian (October 2024), and Alex Doñé and Elizabeth Birr Moje. These appointments reflect the foundation's commitment to diverse expertise in investment management, education, and youth development.

Application Process & Timeline

How to Apply

Two-Stage Process:

  1. Letter of Inquiry (LOI): All applications begin with a brief LOI submitted through the foundation's online portal at wtg.smartsimple.com. The LOI should clearly articulate the research questions, theoretical framework, methodology, and significance for youth outcomes or research evidence use.

  2. Full Proposal (by invitation only): Approximately 15% of LOI applicants are invited to submit full proposals. The time between invitation and submission is 2-5 months, allowing adequate time for proposal development.

Application Cycles: The foundation operates fixed deadline cycles with three cycles annually for major research grants and two cycles for officers' grants. Specific dates are published on the website each November for the following year.

Pre-Application Guidance: The foundation strongly encourages reviewing the Resources for Applicants webpage, particularly resources under the "Applicant Guidance" section, annotated excerpts from successful proposals, and examples of recent grants before submitting. However, due to limited staff capacity, the foundation generally cannot provide pre-submission consultations about individual project ideas.

Decision Timeline

LOI Review: Eight weeks from deadline. Staff conducts initial review examining importance of research questions and basic fit with foundation priorities.

Full Proposal Review: Six months. External peer reviewers and internal staff evaluate research design, methods, team qualifications, and potential impact.

Total Timeline: 10-15 months from LOI submission to Board of Trustees approval and award notification.

Notification Methods: Applicants receive email notifications at each stage. Those not invited to submit full proposals receive brief notification without detailed feedback due to high application volume.

Success Rates

Major Research Grants:

  • Approximately 15% of LOI applicants are invited to submit full proposals
  • Approximately 20% of full proposals receive funding
  • Overall success rate: About 5% of LOI submissions result in awards

Officers' Research Grants:

  • Overall success rate: 8-10% of LOI submissions result in awards

William T. Grant Scholars Program:

  • 4-6 Scholars selected annually from a highly competitive pool
  • Extremely competitive with success rate under 5%

The highly competitive nature reflects the foundation's commitment to funding only the highest quality research with strong potential for impact on youth outcomes or research evidence use.

Reapplication Policy

The foundation permits resubmissions of unsuccessful letters of inquiry. Applicants can indicate in the application portal whether the submission is a resubmission of a prior application. There is no specified waiting period between resubmission attempts, allowing applicants to reapply in the next available cycle. However, unsuccessful applicants should carefully review any feedback provided (when available) and significantly strengthen their proposals before resubmitting. The foundation does not provide customized feedback to all unsuccessful applicants due to high volume, but applicants are encouraged to review successful proposal examples and applicant resources to improve their submissions.

Application Success Factors

Foundation's Direct Advice:

The foundation explicitly states that successful proposals demonstrate:

  1. Rich conceptualizations of research evidence use - Moving beyond simple awareness to examine actual utilization in decision-making
  2. Theory of improvement - Not just understanding current practices but theorizing how to improve them
  3. Reliable and valid measures - Rigorous methods for assessing outcomes and processes
  4. Strong empirical evidence - Research designs and methods that will provide convincing answers to important questions

Evaluation Criteria Priority:

The foundation begins reviews by evaluating the importance of the research questions or hypotheses. Only after establishing that questions matter do reviewers assess whether proposed methods will provide strong answers. This means applicants must make compelling cases for why their research questions are critical for youth outcomes or evidence use, not just demonstrate methodological sophistication.

Team Qualifications:

Prior training and publications should demonstrate that the research team has a track record of conducting strong research and communicating it successfully. Teams should be well-positioned to address varied tasks, potentially combining expertise across disciplines or methods, with specific value for each member's contributions. The foundation evaluates capabilities based on prior success managing research projects and peer-reviewed empirical publications.

Examples of Recently Funded Projects:

  • Opioid Settlement Decision-Making (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $965,366): Testing whether multi-criteria decision analysis improves decision-makers' use of research evidence in allocating opioid settlement funds to benefit youth
  • Research-Practice Partnerships in Education (William Marsh Rice University, $641,497): Studying brokering activities and outcomes among embedded versus informal liaisons in education research-practice partnerships
  • School District Safe-Zone Policies (University of California, Merced, $138,286): Assessing whether school district safe zone policies improve academic outcomes for Hispanic and other marginalized students

Foundation Language and Terminology:

Applicants should use terminology that emphasizes:

  • "Reducing inequality" rather than simply "studying inequality"
  • "Improving use" of research evidence rather than "increasing awareness"
  • "Programs, policies, and practices" that are "implementable" at scale
  • Youth "outcomes" in specific domains (academic, social, behavioral, economic)
  • "Research-practice partnerships" and "evidence-informed decision-making"

Common Pitfalls to Avoid:

  • Proposing descriptive studies that document inequality without testing interventions to reduce it
  • Focusing on awareness of research rather than actual use in decision-making
  • Insufficient attention to measurement of key constructs, especially research evidence use
  • Weak connections between research questions and potential for implementation at scale
  • Proposals lacking clear theoretical frameworks for understanding or improving phenomena

Key Takeaways for Grant Writers

  • Alignment is non-negotiable: Research must directly address reducing inequality in youth outcomes OR improving use of research evidence. Tangential connections will not succeed in this highly competitive process (5% success rate for major grants).

  • Theory of change matters more than describing problems: The foundation explicitly seeks research that tests solutions and improvement strategies, not studies that simply document causes or consequences of inequality or describe current evidence use patterns.

  • Invest time in the LOI: With only 15% of LOI applicants invited to full proposals, the initial letter is the critical hurdle. Review annotated examples of successful LOIs and ensure the research questions are immediately compelling and clearly aligned with foundation priorities.

  • Measurement rigor is essential: Particularly for research on evidence use, proposals must include reliable and valid measures. Vague assessment strategies will not pass review.

  • Demonstrate implementation potential: Reviewers want to know how findings will inform implementable programs, policies, or practices affecting youth ages 5-25 in the United States. Connect research questions explicitly to decision-making contexts.

  • Build on your track record: The foundation evaluates whether teams can successfully execute proposed work based on prior research accomplishments and peer-reviewed publications. Early-career researchers should consider the Scholars Program rather than competing for major research grants.

  • Plan for the long timeline: With 10-15 months from LOI to award and limited feedback for unsuccessful applications, applicants should build this into research planning and be prepared to strengthen and resubmit if necessary.

References

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