Washington D.C. Grants for Nonprofits
Learn about grants to nonprofits in Washington D.C. by browsing our curated list of top funders below. Members can also research funding opportunities in Washington D.C. using the search tool for Grant Finder. Become a member.
Giving Trends in Washington D.C.
While there is quite a bit of overlap between grants for Washington D.C. and grants for the surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia, there are also a number of grantmaking programs focused on D.C. About 7,600 grantmakers made grants for Washington D.C. in 2019 alone, according to Candid. Many of these grants came through donor-advised fund managers. Members of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG) gave more than $255 million locally in 2018, the most recent year on which the association has reported.
Education, health, and arts and culture rank high among Washington D.C. grantmakers’ funding priorities, WRAG has reported. Partly fueled by the national reckoning around systemic racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police in 2020, equity has been a growing focus of Washington D.C. grants in recent years. Several D.C.-focused foundations are collaborating to advocate for funding of community organizing and racial justice work. WRAG launched a Racial Equity Working Group in 2017.
Important Washington D.C. grantmakers include the Greater Washington Community Foundation, Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, United Way of the National Capital Area, Annie E. Casey Foundation, A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation, Clark-Winchcole Foundation, Meyer Foundation, J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, Hill-Snowdon Foundation,if: A Foundation for Radical Possibility(formerly the Consumer Health Foundation), Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, andDiverse City Fund.
