Grants for Public Schools & PTAs
If you run a public school, PTA, or school support organization, this page is your starting point. Bespoke Grants tracks 3,799 foundations that fund public schools & ptas — together $55.84B in recent grants. Below are the most active funders. Every one links to a full giving profile, and Bespoke Grants will rank all 3,799 against your organization's specific mission and location, free.
Foundations that fund public schools & ptas
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 | 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 public schools & ptas. Bespoke Grants ranks all 3,799 against your actual mission, service area, and budget, and shows you why each matches. Free, no credit card.
Match my organization to funders →How public schools & ptas 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 public schools & ptas: 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 public schools & ptas?
- Start with foundations that already fund public schools & ptas — 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 public schools & ptas?
- Bespoke Grants tracks 3,799 foundations that fund public schools & ptas, 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.