In today’s ever-changing educational landscape, private sector organizations play a crucial role in advancing learning opportunities for students of all ages. From corporate foundations to nonprofits and individual donors, there are many resources available to support education initiatives for Grades PreK-12. We’ve put together a list to help you navigate the complex ecosystem of private sector funding and grant opportunities that are available to educational institutions.
Purpose: Academic Enrichment Grants by the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation fund in-class and extra-curricular programs that improve learning for children from households below the poverty threshold. The foundation considers proposals that foster understanding, deepen students’ knowledge, and provide opportunities to expand awareness of the world around them.
Eligibility: Applicants must have direct and regular contact with students in Grades PreK-12, including students from families with incomes below the poverty threshold.
Contact Info: Academic Enrichment Grants
Purpose: ALDI community grants support to communities with ALDI stores by providing funding to positively impact children’s health and wellness and food insecurity while supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Eligibility: Programs must support one of ALDI’s core focuses: Children’s Health & Wellness, Food Insecurity, and supporting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Contact Info: ALDI
Purpose: Believe in Reading supports literacy programs that serve populations with exceptional needs, such as low reading scores and high poverty rates.
Eligibility: Funds support existing and provably successful literacy programs that have been established for at least two years. Reading must be the primary activity.
Contact Info: Believe in Reading
Purpose: This grant program provides funds for physical improvements to schools, professional development for teachers, materials that enrich the learning environment, and efforts to engage students with their community.
Eligibility: Any K-12 public or nonprofit private school in Casey's 16-state footprint.
Contact Info: Casey’s Cash for Classrooms Grant
Purpose: Beyond Words is a disaster relief fund that awards grants to public school libraries that have incurred substantial damage or hardship due to a natural disaster, fire, or an act recognized by the federal government as terrorism.
Eligibility: Public schools with a pre-existing school library are eligible to apply within 36 months of the date of the disaster provided there is significant damage to books, media, and/or library equipment, and they are within 15 miles from a Dollar General store or Distribution Center.
Contact Info: Dollar General Literacy Foundation
Purpose: These grants support the creation or expansion of summer reading programs.
Eligibility: Programs must target students in Grades PreK-12 who are new readers, students reading below grade level, and students with learning disabilities. Schools must be within a 15-mile radius of a Dollar General Store.
Contact Info: Dollar General Literacy Foundation
Purpose: The purpose of the Dollar General Youth Literacy Grants is to provide support for students reading below grade level or having difficulty reading. Funds can be used to implement new literacy programs, expand existing literacy programs, purchase new technology or equipment to support literacy initiatives, and purchase books, materials, or software for literacy programs.
Eligibility: Schools must be within a 15-mile radius of a Dollar General Store.
Contact Info: Dollar General Literacy Foundation
Purpose: The purpose of this grant is to promote geography education in schools, enhance the geographic literacy of students, and encourage the integration of geography into the social studies curriculum.
Eligibility: Nominees must agree to be available to present their work at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference and via webinar or other outreach means if selected.
Contact Info: National Council for the Social Studies
Purpose: The Innovative Reading Grant helps fund planning and implementation of innovative programs designed to motivate and encourage students in Grades K-9 in reading, especially striving readers.
Eligibility: Applicants must be members of the American Association of School Librarians.
Contact Info: Innovative Reading Grant
Purpose: The Joann Sweetland Lum Memorial Grant provides funding for librarians who have creative and innovative projects that promote literacy, including but not limited to digital, media, visual, computer, data, financial, civic/ethical, news, information, multicultural, and cultural.
Eligibility: Applicants must work for and with youth ages 10-19 in a library setting.
Contact Info: Young Adult Library Services Association
Purpose: This grant provides funds to school libraries to expand, diversify, and update their collections with the goal of encouraging all students to develop a love of reading and learning.
Eligibility: A certified librarian or other paid professional must be assigned as responsible for the collection, care, and use of the materials housed in the school library. Public schools must be Title I eligible; at least 50 percent of private and parochial school populations must qualify for financial aid. Schools must have a library or designated space on campus where books are accessible to all students to check out.
Contact Info: Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries
Purpose: The bookmobile grant program provides funds for purchasing fiction and nonfiction books published for students in Grades PreK-8 and made available through a lending bookmobile.
Eligibility: Organizations must serve economically or socially at-risk children, have limited book budgets, and demonstrate real need. Books must be available for checkout for pleasure reading or as a source of information for a school assignment.
Contact Info: Lois Lenski Bookmobile Grants
Purpose: The National Home Library Foundation seeks to combat illiteracy and/or encourage an interest in reading by providing funds for books for libraries, schools, and literacy programs serving populations in need of reading resources.
Eligibility: Preference is given to grant requests from the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area.
Contact Info: National Home Library Foundation
Purpose: The Snapdragon Book Foundation provides books for school libraries serving disadvantaged children.
Eligibility: Any school library serving children in Grades PreK-12 is eligible.
Contact Info: Snapdragon Book Foundation
Purpose: The Toshiba America Foundation (TAF) funds projects and materials to help teachers innovate in their science, technology, engineering, and math classrooms. TAF offers two separate grants for teachers of students in Grades K-5 and 6-12.
Eligibility: Applications must be for project-based learning.
Contact Info: Toshiba
Purpose: This program funds innovative classroom projects.
Eligibility: Applicants must be full-time educators, teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, or classified staff with effective and innovative projects that improve student learning.
Contact Info: Scholarship America
Purpose: Westinghouse provides grants to improve knowledge and literacy with a focus in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Proposals must show how the grant will enhance STEM learning, assist in an overall mission of educating, and spark an interest in STEM-related careers.
Eligibility: Organizations must be within 50 miles from a Westinghouse site.
Contact Info: Westinghouse
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