2026 Research Grants on Reducing Inequality

The William T. Grant Foundation is seeking applications for its Research Grants.

Donor Name: William T. Grant Foundation

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 07/29/2026

Size of the Grant: $500,000 to $1 million

Grant Duration: 3 Years

Details:

This program funds research studies that examine programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5–25 in the United States, along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status (e.g., LGBTQ+ youth), language minority status, or immigrant origins.

The Foundation Funds

• Descriptive studies that describe, explore, or explain how programs, practices, or policies reduce inequality.
• Intervention studies that provide causal evidence on the effectiveness of programs or policies for reducing inequality

The research interests center on studies that examine ways to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. They welcome descriptive studies that clarify mechanisms for reducing inequality or elucidate how or why a specific program, policy, or practice operates to reduce inequality. They also welcome intervention studies that examine attempts to reduce inequality. Finally, they welcome studies that improve the measurement of inequality in ways that can enhance the work of researchers, practitioners, or policymakers.

• Identify a specific inequality in youth outcomes.
  • The fund research to reduce inequality in academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes.
    • Show that outcomes are unequal in a brief discussion of existing literature.
    • Highlight the main explanations for the unequal outcomes that are relevant for your study.
• Make a convincing case for the dimension(s) of inequality the study will address.
  • The fund  research to reduce inequality along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status (e.g., LGBTQ+ youth), language minority status, or immigrant origin status.
    • Please specify the groups on which the study will focus. They do not fund studies that use vague terms such as “at-risk youth,” “disadvantaged youth,” or “vulnerable youth.
    • Offer a well-developed conceptualization of inequality. Avoid treating dimensions of inequality (e.g., race, economic standing) as variables without providing conceptual and/or theoretical insight into why and how the identified inequality exists.
    • Research that focuses on a dimension other than race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status, language minority status, or immigrant origins must be in intersection with one of these dimensions.
• Articulate how findings from your research will help build, test, or increase understanding of a program, policy, or practice to reduce the specific inequality that you have identified.
  • Draw on extant theoretical and empirical literature to provide a rationale for why the specific programs, policies, or practices under study will equalize outcomes between groups or improve outcomes of a particular group. In other words, specify your theory of change.
  • Identify how the study will investigate this rationale to determine whether it holds up to empirical scrutiny.

Funding Information

• Major research grants: $100,000 to $600,000 over 2-3 years, including up to 15% indirect costs. Funding amounts vary based on the study design, see page 6 for more information.
• Officers’ research grants: $25,000–$50,000 over 1-2 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible Organizations
  • The Foundation makes grants only to tax-exempt organizations. They do not make grants to individuals.
  • They encourage proposals from organizations that are under-represented among grantee institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Alaska NativeServing Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.
• Eligible Principal Investigators
  • The Foundation defers to the applying organization’s criteria for who is eligible to act as a Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on a grant. In general, they expect that all investigators will have the experience and skills to carry out the proposed work.
  • They strive to support a diverse group of researchers in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and seniority, and they encourage research projects led by Black or African American, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Asian or Pacific Islander American researchers.
• Eligible Studies
  • Only studies that 1) align with the stated research interests of this program and 2) relate to the outcomes of young people between the ages of 5 and 25 in the United States are eligible for consideration.
  • They do not support non-research activities such as program implementation and operational costs, or make contributions to building funds, fundraising drives, endowment funds, general operating budgets, or scholarships. Letters of inquiry for ineligible projects are screened out without further review.

For more information, visit William T. Grant Foundation.