In 2024 and 2025, the Ford Foundation approved 3,716 grants with the majority of the largest contracts being awarded to small and medium-sized nonprofits. In this article, we offer this and four other useful insights to help you to assess whether or not the Ford Foundation should be on your grant application radar.
The Ford Foundation was established in 1936 by Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford, and remained under the Ford family’s direct leadership until 1950. A few decades later, Henry Ford II quit the Board of Directors, making the Ford Foundation completely independent from the family. However, in 2019, Henry Ford III was nominated as a trustee, rekindling the family relationship.
The Ford Foundation is one of the largest private endowment organizations in the United States, with a fund of US$16 billion.
Although the official grantmaking numbers for 2025 have not yet been released, in 2024, the Ford Foundation distributed US$768 million in funding to 1,800+ grantees. In this article, we explore the recent funding priorities and awardees’ profiles by accessing the data available from the Grants Database and limiting the search to 2024 and 2025. We then proceeded to analyze all 3,716 grants given during this timeframe.
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Insight #1: North America gets 70% of the grants approved
In its grant database, the Ford Foundation does not list the region of impact for each approved project. However, it is still possible to gain a grasp of the regional distribution of financial aid by looking at the funding office assigned to each grant.
For instance, the United States office is associated with 2,618 grants approved between 2024 and 2025, which represents 70% of the proposals awarded. South America is the second largest recipient of aid with 403 of the projects signed during this period being based in these regional offices. Africa follows closely, with its offices handling 400 new projects (excluding the office in North Africa).
Figure 1 – Number of grants per regional funding office(s) signed by the Ford Foundation during the period 2024-2025. This data was retrieved directly from the Grants Database of the Ford Foundation (version: 9 April 2026).
Insight #2: Civil and human rights were the priority area of the last two years
The Ford Foundation states that fighting inequality is its primary mission but how does this translate in practice?
For the last two years, of the total amount of grants, the three priority areas were:
- Civil and human rights – 19.6% of financed projects.
- Arts, culture and media – 16.4% of financed projects.
- Civic participation – 16.1% of financed projects.
While the number of approved grants in the Arts and Civic participation areas increased considerably in 2025, the priority area “Civil and human rights” underwent a 9% decline.
Despite not being top priorities, “Education and scholarship” and “Philanthropy” should also be on your watchlist. In 2025, these topics experienced the highest growth in the number of funded proposals – 105% and 77%, respectively.
Table I – The funding priority areas of the Ford Foundation during the period 2024-2025, as determined by the number of grants signed in this timeframe. Note: Each grant can cover more than one funding priority. This data was retrieved directly from the Grants Database of the Ford Foundation (version: 9 April 2026).
Insight #3: Small and medium nonprofits secured the most of the top-22 largest grants
Using the Grant Database available on the Ford Foundation’s website, we identified the top 22 largest grants and analyzed the size of the awardees in terms of revenue according to four categories:
- Small, <US$5 million in revenue in 2024.
- Medium, US$5 – 25 million.
- Large, US$25 – 100 million.
- Very large, >US$100 million.
About 45% of the beneficiaries were medium-sized nonprofits and small NGOs were the second category, representing 32% of the total. This means that applicants do not need a huge revenue stream to be able to secure large sums from the Ford Foundation, which is definitely a great incentive for smaller entities to apply.
Figure 2 – Size of awardees that secured the top 22 grants signed during 2024 – 2025. For this analysis, size was determined based on the 2024 revenue in U.S. dollars. This revenue data was extracted from ProPublica (when available) or from 2024 financial reports. The grant amounts were retrieved directly from the Grants Database of the Ford Foundation (version: 9 April 2026).
Insight #4: Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors awarded the highest grant
The three awardees who obtained the highest amount of funding in a single grant from the Ford Foundation were also different in terms of size:
🔸 Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors – US$15 million grant
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations and has distributed more than US$4 billion across the globe. Its work is mainly focused on justice and people and, beyond functioning as a grantmaking entity, it assists nonprofits with governance, management, and operational infrastructure.
🔸 TrustAfrica – US$11.5 million grant
TrustAfrica is a medium-sized nonprofit working towards stronger democracy, equitable development, and improved philanthropy in African countries. TrustAfrica has a dual purpose as a grantmaking institution and a project implementation leader.
🔸 The Studio Museum in Harlem – US$10 million grant
The Studio Museum in Harlem supports artists of African descent and serves as a repository and stage for their artworks, which are often overlooked elsewhere. For the purposes of this analysis, the Studio was considered a large nonprofit given the reported revenue of ~US$43 million in 2024.
Table II – Top 10 grantees of the Ford Foundation during the period 2024-2025, as determined by the highest funding awarded in a single grant. This data was retrieved directly from the Grants Database of the Ford Foundation (version: 9 April 2026).
Insight #5: Funding towards strengthening democracy in the U.S. is expected to increase
In April 2026, the Ford Foundation announced urgent, immediate additional funding of US$60 million to support organizations pursuing projects aimed at “protecting and advancing democracy and the rule of law in the United States”. Given the current political context in the country and the recent global geopolitical dynamics, it is safe to predict that aid dedicated to this topic will also increase in the years to come.
How you should leverage these insights
Keeping up with the latest funding trends allows nonprofits to make more informed decisions when it comes to their grant applications and funding strategies. Specifically, knowing which donors favor certain regions and topics is of extreme importance when selecting the appropriate grant calls to maximize the chance of a successful proposal.
Read also: Top grantees and funding priorities of the Gates Foundation in 2024-2025
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