Grants for Libraries
If you run a library or library foundation, this page is your starting point. Bespoke Grants tracks 3,133 foundations that fund libraries — together $33.45B in recent grants. Below are the most active funders. Every one links to a full giving profile, and Bespoke Grants will rank all 3,133 against your organization's specific mission and location, free.
Foundations that fund libraries
Ranked by total recent giving. Click any funder for its full profile — giving history, grant recipients, focus areas, and how to apply.
| # | Foundation | Based in | Annual giving |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lilly Endowment Inc | Indianapolis, IN | $789.6M |
| 2 | New York University | New York, NY | $770.5M |
| 3 | The Ford Foundation | New York, NY | $760.8M |
| 4 | Navigate Affordable Housing | Birmingham, AL | $639.4M |
| 5 | Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding | Indianapolis, IN | $635.6M |
| 6 | Foundation to Promote Open Society | New York, NY | $593.3M |
| 7 | The Chicago Community Trust | Chicago, IL | $576.9M |
| 8 | The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Princeton, NJ | $532.0M |
| 9 | Walton Family Foundation Inc | Bentonville, AR | $496.2M |
| 10 | The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation | Menlo Park, CA | $471.3M |
| 11 | The Leona M and Harry B Helmsley | New York, NY | $440.9M |
| 12 | The Andrew W Mellon Foundation | New York, NY | $420.9M |
| 13 | The Trustees of Princeton University | Princeton, NJ | $407.8M |
| 14 | The Jpb Foundation | New York, NY | $359.4M |
| 15 | The Rotary Foundation of Rotary | Evanston, IL | $313.5M |
| 16 | John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation (consolidated) | Chicago, IL | $311.5M |
| 17 | Wk Kellogg Foundation | Battle Creek, MI | $295.1M |
| 18 | The Simons Foundation Inc | New York, NY | $294.0M |
| 19 | Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation | Palo Alto, CA | $272.1M |
| 20 | The San Francisco Foundation | San Francisco, CA | $228.0M |
| 21 | Kaiser Foundation Hospitals | Oakland, CA | $226.8M |
| 22 | University of Dayton | Dayton, OH | $215.5M |
| 23 | Laura and John Arnold Foundation | Houston, TX | $212.5M |
| 24 | The Sherwood Foundation | Omaha, NE | $212.4M |
| 25 | Novo Foundation | Brooklyn, NY | $208.4M |
| 26 | Conrad N Hilton Foundation | Agoura Hills, CA | $207.6M |
| 27 | The Oregon Community Foundation | Portland, OR | $199.2M |
| 28 | Educational Credit Management Corporation | Minneapolis, MN | $194.2M |
| 29 | The Sunderland Foundation | Overland Park, KS | $188.5M |
| 30 | The Community Foundation for Greater | Atlanta, GA | $184.9M |
This list is ranked by size. Yours should be ranked by fit.
The funders above are the biggest — not necessarily the right ones for your libraries. Bespoke Grants ranks all 3,133 against your actual mission, service area, and budget, and shows you why each matches. Free, no credit card.
Match my organization to funders →How libraries should approach these funders
A long list of funders is only useful if you approach them well. Three things matter more than the size of your libraries: fit, evidence, and the first contact. Fit means the funder's stated priorities, the population they serve, and the geography they fund genuinely overlap with your work — funders reject far more proposals for poor fit than for weak programs. Evidence means a specific, concrete description of the need you address and what your funding will change. And the first contact is rarely a full proposal: most private foundations prefer a brief letter of inquiry, and many fund only organizations they already know — so a warm introduction or a short, well-targeted note is the realistic way in.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I find grants for libraries?
- Start with foundations that already fund libraries — our index lists 3,133. Match them to your specific mission, location, and budget, then approach the best fits with a brief letter of inquiry rather than a cold full proposal.
- How many foundations fund libraries?
- Bespoke Grants tracks 3,133 foundations that fund libraries, representing $33.45B in recent grants.
- Do these foundations accept unsolicited applications?
- Some do; many do not. Each foundation's profile shows what is known about its application process. Where a funder does not accept unsolicited proposals, relationship-building is still the path in — it is rarely a dead end.