The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will only consider requests for endowment funds from institutions that can demonstrate the financial capacity to manage the funds on an ongoing basis. Recipients of an endowment grant are to invest and manage the funds prudently and in perpetuity. When requesting an endowment grant, an organization with an endowment under $100 million must provide documentation that demonstrates its capacity to invest and manage endowment funds.

We make grants through our core program areas and signature Presidential Initiatives, including Imagining Freedom, our grantmaking in Puerto Rico, and The Monuments Project.

Our four grantmaking areas:

Arts & Culture

We support exceptional creative practice, scholarship, and conservation practices while nurturing a representative and robust arts and culture ecosystem. We work with artists, curators, conservators, scholars, and organizations to ensure equitable access to excellent arts and cultural experiences and support approaches that place the arts and artists at the center of thriving, healthy communities.

Higher Learning

Working with colleges, universities, and other organizations that nurture advanced humanistic inquiry and social justice, Mellon makes grants through its Higher Learning program that broaden our understanding of American history and culture; develop the interpretive tools and methods scholars use to create meaning; support faculty and students whose work exemplifies a drive toward greater equity in their fields and institutions; and promote pathways for those seeking to exercise transformative academic leadership.

Humanities in Place

Working with media, heritage, and public spaces, history museums and other institutions, and conveners of shared experiences—including the digital or ephemeral—we strive to expand the public expression of the histories that have made us and the values we hold. Our program works across and within diverse communities, encouraging bold, innovative rethinking of past practices and visionary new approaches for collectively understanding, uplifting, and celebrating more complete stories about who we are.

Public Knowledge

Mellon’s Public Knowledge program supports the creation and preservation of the cultural and scholarly record—vast and ever-expanding—that documents society’s complex, intertwined humanity. The program works with archives, presses, and a range of university, public, and other local, national, and global libraries that are foundational to knowledge production and distribution in culture and the humanities. The program aims to increase equitable access to deep knowledge that helps build an informed, heterogeneous, and civically engaged society. We aspire to cultivate networks and maintainable infrastructure, expand digital inclusion, and ensure that more authentic, reflective, and nuanced stories are revealed, preserved, and told.

Types of Grants

Mellon makes project support grants and, depending on the type of institution, general operating support grants. Project support grants include spendable grants, endowment grants, and program-related investments. Some of our grants include a matching requirement. On occasion, the Foundation also awards grants for the creation or strengthening of a cash reserve.

Project Support Grants

Spendable Grants

Spendable grants are to be spent according to the proposal, including its schedule and budget, and conditions specified in the Foundation's grant agreement.

Endowment Grants

Endowment grants establish institutional funds that are subject to specific spending limitations as indicated in the grant agreement and proposal and governed by applicable state law.

General Operating Grants

General Operating grants support the core operations and overall mission of the grantee.

For grants awarded by Mellon, the Foundation’s grant agreement specifies the terms of the grant, including the use of grant funds and reporting schedule. Grant funds must only be used for the purposes, over the timeframe, and in the manner set forth in the grant agreement and finalized proposal.

Has Mellon invited your organization to submit a proposal? If yes, review our proposal guidelines and complete the proposal via the Grants Portal. If no, review our grantmaking strategies and submit an inquiry online.