Grants for Private & Independent Schools
If you run a private or independent school, this page is your starting point. Bespoke Grants tracks 3,799 foundations that fund private & independent schools — together $55.84B in recent grants. Below are the most active funders. Every one links to a public funder overview, and Bespoke Grants will rank all 3,799 against your organization's specific mission and location. One lifetime free search includes up to three sourced matches; further searches and the full workflow are $19/month. No credit card is needed for the preview.
Foundations that fund private & independent schools
Ranked by total recent giving. Click any funder for its public overview and up to three sample grants. Full grant history and research tools require All access at $19/month.
| # | Foundation | Based in | Annual giving |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund | Boston, MA | $7.32B |
| 2 | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Seattle, WA | $5.37B |
| 3 | Mayo Clinic Group Return | Rochester, MN | $1.31B |
| 4 | World Vision Inc | Federal Way, WA | $984.7M |
| 5 | Baptist Health South Florida Inc | Coral Gables, FL | $885.6M |
| 6 | The Ford Foundation | New York, NY | $760.8M |
| 7 | University of Southern California | Los Angeles, CA | $642.7M |
| 8 | Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding | Indianapolis, IN | $635.6M |
| 9 | Foundation to Promote Open Society | New York, NY | $593.3M |
| 10 | The Chicago Community Trust | Chicago, IL | $576.9M |
| 11 | The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Princeton, NJ | $532.0M |
| 12 | Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA | $503.8M |
| 13 | The Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc | New York, NY | $497.1M |
| 14 | Walton Family Foundation Inc | Bentonville, AR | $496.2M |
| 15 | Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation | Redmond, WA | $484.7M |
| 16 | The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation | Menlo Park, CA | $471.3M |
| 17 | The Leona M and Harry B Helmsley | New York, NY | $440.9M |
| 18 | Drexel University | Philadelphia, PA | $423.8M |
| 19 | The Andrew W Mellon Foundation | New York, NY | $420.9M |
| 20 | The Trustees of Princeton University | Princeton, NJ | $407.8M |
| 21 | Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation | Tulsa, OK | $365.3M |
| 22 | The Jpb Foundation | New York, NY | $359.4M |
| 23 | National Fish and Wildlife Foundation | Washington, DC | $323.2M |
| 24 | John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation (consolidated) | Chicago, IL | $311.5M |
| 25 | Wk Kellogg Foundation | Battle Creek, MI | $295.1M |
| 26 | The Simons Foundation Inc | New York, NY | $294.0M |
| 27 | Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation | Palo Alto, CA | $272.1M |
| 28 | The San Francisco Foundation | San Francisco, CA | $228.0M |
| 29 | Kaiser Foundation Hospitals | Oakland, CA | $226.8M |
| 30 | Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation | Palo Alto, CA | $213.3M |
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 private & independent schools. Bespoke Grants ranks all 3,799 against your actual mission, service area, and budget, and shows you why each matches. One lifetime free search includes up to three sourced matches; further searches and the full workflow are $19/month. No credit card is needed for the preview.
Match my organization to funders →How private & independent schools 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 private & independent schools: 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 private & independent schools?
- Start with foundations that already fund private & independent schools — our index lists 3,799. 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 private & independent schools?
- Bespoke Grants tracks 3,799 foundations that fund private & independent schools, representing $55.84B 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.