William T. Grant Foundation

William T. Grant Foundation is a US private foundation based in New York, NY.

Profile derived from the foundation's IRS Form 990-PF filings (TY2024, TY2023, TY2022) and its website, with every statement checked against those sources. Sources read on 7 October 2026.

Priority Areas

The Foundation supports high-quality research intended to reduce inequality in young people’s academic, social, behavioural and economic outcomes, and to improve the use of research evidence in decisions affecting young people in the United States. Its research grants address programmes, policies and practices across youth-serving systems, including justice, housing, child welfare, mental health and education; it makes grants to tax-exempt organisations rather than individuals. Alongside research, it supports youth-serving nonprofit organisations in New York City through grants to improve direct services and strengthen organisational capacity. Its approach includes capacity-building for research grantees, opportunities for scholars, policymakers and practitioners to learn together, and assistance to community organisations as they develop improvements.

Themes

• Youth outcome inequality
• Research evidence use
• Youth service improvement
• Nonprofit capacity-building

Geographic Focus

United States; five boroughs of New York City.

What They Don't Fund

• General operating support, service expansion or program growth, building campaigns, scholarships, endowments, lobbying, or awards to individuals. The exception to this is the Youth Service Capacity-Building Grants
• Research Grants on Reducing Inequality only: Studies that focus primarily on physical health outcomes (e.g., physical illness, clinical trials, etc.); Studies that focus solely on dimensions other than race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status (e.g., LGBTQ+ youth), language minority status, or immigrant origins; Studies that focus primarily on the causes, extent, or consequences of inequality; non-research activities such as program implementation and operational costs; building funds, fundraising drives, endowment funds, general operating budgets, or scholarships
• Youth Service Improvement Grants only: General operations; Planning, needs assessment, and evaluation proposals; Program improvement activities not focused on changes at the point-of-service, such as board development or financial system updates; Capital fund projects, scholarships, endowments, lobbying, real estate purchases, or awards to individuals; Expansions or additions to programming, including changes that simply increase the number of slots in a program or result in new programming; Public and private schools; Organizations that are based outside the five boroughs of New York City

For research grants, the process starts with a letter of inquiry; for major grants the Foundation invites full proposals after reviewing the inquiry, while Officers’ Research Grants are awarded on the inquiry alone.

• Repeat giving: In its TY2024 filing, 77% of its grant dollars to organisations went to organisations it had also funded in its TY2022 or TY2023 filing.
• Grant size: Across its TY2022, TY2023 and TY2024 filings, half of its 454 grants to organisations were about $70,000 or less.

What the foundation says:

• Research-grant inquiries are reviewed first for the importance of the questions and their alignment with the Foundation’s interests, then for whether the proposed designs and methods will provide strong empirical evidence.
• The Foundation encourages proposals from organisations under-represented among grantee institutions, including historically Black colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions and Tribal Colleges and Universities.
• The Foundation encourages research projects led by Black or African American, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Asian or Pacific Islander American researchers.
• Youth Service Improvement applicants should identify a point-of-service problem, explain its impact on participants and set out its likely causes.
• A strong Youth Service Improvement plan addresses the problem’s causes and is likely to be effective and sustainable.
• Capacity-Building applicants should have completed an initial assessment, identify their organisational challenges and understand the underlying causes.
• The Foundation values projects that involve practitioners or policymakers in shaping research questions, interpreting findings and communicating implications.