Grants: External Funding
Find Your Funding
External funding comes in many different forms. Below, you’ll find detailed lists that link out to federal and foundation grant opportunities.
Federal Grants
Federal grants are forms of economic aid issued by the government. This aid is funded by general federal revenue.
Federal Grant Opportunities
Grants.gov is the most comprehensive source for information on federal funding opportunities and offers a variety of subscription services. This web portal posts federal discretionary grants for all of the 26 federal grant-making agencies. Searching for funding opportunities on Grants.gov allows organizations to electronically find and apply for more than $400 billion in federal grants.
You can also search for current funding opportunities and grant information on each federal agency webpage:
Subscribe to Receive Grant Alerts
Sign up to receive email notifications when new funding opportunities are available.
Foundation Grants
Foundation grants are private and public funding opportunities. Types of foundation grants include:
- Independent – endowed by individuals or families (often have broad goals)
- Community – supports community interests within a particular region
- Public foundations and charities – given by the public, based on stated research goals
- Corporate – company-sponsored and based on annual funds
Foundation Grant Opportunities
Foundation Directory Online
The Foundation Directory Online (FDO) is a searchable database of 1000,000+ foundations, corporate giving programs, and grant-making public charities. Liberty University has an institutional license for FDO that can be used by Liberty University faculty, staff, and students with a valid LU email address.
Access the FDO through the Jerry Falwell Library by entering Foundation Directory Online in the JFL search bar. For Foundation Directory Online questions or assistance, contact grants@liberty.edu.
Selected Foundation Funding Sources
- Alfred P Sloan Foundation | Provides funding for many science-related projects and research including science learning of STEM, data and computational research, scholarly communication, and universal access to knowledge.
- Charles Koch Foundation | Gives in the areas of foundations of well-being, corporate welfare reform, toleration and free speech, foreign policy, criminal justice and policing reform, technology and innovation, and economic freedom.
- George J. & Effie L. Seay Foundation | Funding for arts, culture, humanities, education, and human services. They make grants primarily for programs and projects designed to provide specific services or training.
- Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation | Needs that are served are broad in scope and include human services, education, health, the arts, and the humanities. Must be secular in nature and involve the community.
- Henry Luce Foundation | Supports projects that address the prevailing needs of the American art field and are crucial to its development. Successful projects include permanent collection reinstallations, digitization, and archives of American art material.
- John Templeton Foundation | Provides funding for the natural sciences, human sciences, philosophy and theology, public engagement in the sciences, and character virtue development.
- Josiah Macy Jr Foundation | Funds interprofessional education and teamwork, new curriculum content, new models for clinical education, career development in health professions education, and education for the care of underserved populations.
- Marietta McNeill Morgan & Samuel Tate Morgan Jr. Trust | Established to support and promote quality educational and human services programming in Virginia.
- National Geographic | Supports projects that study the human journey, wildlife, and wild places, as well as our changing plane.
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Funds research that expands the evidence base needed to build a Culture of Health.
- Richard & Caroline T Gwathmey Memorial Trust | Interested in the history, literature, art, and architecture of Virginia. Preference will be given to specific, well-defined project requests for which the results can be evaluated.
- Shelton Hardaway Short Jr Trust | Program areas include arts, culture, humanities, education, environment, animals, health, human services, public/society benefit, and religion.
- Virginia Foundation for the Humanities | Funds public humanities programs in Virginia that are shaped by and significantly involve humanities scholars and/or other community experts. The grant program encourages projects that increase public understanding of important issues and enrich the cultural life of the state.
- William E. Dean III Charitable Foundation | Created exclusively for charitable, religious, scientific, literary, and educational purposes.
- William T. Grant Foundation | Funds research that increases our understanding of programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes, and research that identifies, builds, and tests strategies to improve the use of research evidence in ways that benefit youth.