Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation invests in efforts to improve college access and completion for low-income students with high potential. It also supports arts education for young musicians, and makes grants locally to youth-serving nonprofit organizations in the Northern Virginia; metropolitan Washington, DC; and Maryland areas.
IP TAKE: JKCF only makes grants at the intersection of youth and education, predominantly in the Mid-Atlantic region. Grant seekers who fall outside this purview will want to look elsewhere.
Individuals may apply to JKCF’s scholarships, but the foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for grants. The foundation encourages interested grant seekers to subscribe to its newsletter for information on funding opportunities.
PROFILE: The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (JKCF), established in 2000, was founded on the belief that low-income students often fall short of their educational potential because of the high cost of education. Headquartered in Landsdowne, Virginia, JKCF works toward “providing students both counseling and financial support from middle school to graduate school” through “significant grants for noteworthy and innovative initiatives that support high-performing, low-income students.” JKCF supports this mission through its scholarship and grants programs.
Grants for Education
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation devotes most of its grantmaking energies toward funding programs that support and expand education opportunities throughout the United States. View past Education grant recipients here.
Grants for K-12 Education
The foundation supports K-12 education through its Academic Achievement program, which contains four separate awards. The Talent Development Award is a “one-time $500,000 grant intended to catalyze an organization’s work, bring strategies to a broader scale, and amplify conversations around one approach to cultivating potential.” The Selective Public High Schools award is designed for high-achieving students and provides a “uniquely stimulating learning environment” with “increased exposure to rigorous content, deep engagement, and academically-oriented peer support.” Through the Summer Enrichment Program, JKCF supports nonprofit organizations or universities who provide access to high-quality summer enrichment programs for high-achieving low-income middle and high school students. Advanced Learning awards support lower income and minority middle and high school students with “rigorous academics” and “real-world applications of what they are learning” in order to increase the likelihood of success in college and in their career.
Grants for College Readiness
The foundation’s College Access and Excellence program “identifies and invests a portion of its funding in strategic grant initiatives to expand educational opportunities throughout the United States” and “partners with educational leaders that share our commitment to advance the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need.”
Grants for Higher Education
JKCF’s higher education scholarship programs include the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarships, which support outstanding students with high financial need through college and graduate school; the College Scholarship Program, which provides high school seniors advisement, mentoring and up to $40,000 a year for college tuition, and Undergraduate Transfer Scholarships, which support “the nation’s top community college students seeking to complete their bachelor’s degrees at selective four-year colleges or universities.”
The Cooke Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence is a $1 million grant “to a selective college or university with an excellent record of admitting, supporting and graduating outstanding low-income students.” UNC-Chapel Hill, Amherst College, and Vassar College have all received this award recently.
Grants for Arts Education
The foundation supports musicians with financial need through its scholarship programs and the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. The Young Artist award supports 20 young classically trained instrumentalists, vocalists and/or composers —ages 8 to 18—from limited financial backgrounds with a $10,000 scholarship to advance their artistic development and education. Additionally, Young Artist awardees perform on From the Top on NPR and PBS.
Grants for Mid-Atlantic States
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is a national funder but makes its home region of the Mid-Atlantic States a top priority. The Good Neighbor program grants support specific project or program-based costs in the funder’s home region. Here, the funder commonly supports summer academic enrichment opportunities, college access programs, arts education, service learning, STEM programs, and innovative programs that bridge education and technology. Occasionally, the funder will also support the development of education-related products, such as handbooks, training guides, and other written and digital media.
Learn more about this funder’s local giving by examining its Past Grants page. Mid-Atlantic States grantmaking focuses on Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Past local grantees include Collegiate Directions, 826DC, the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, and American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras.
Important Grant Details:
Grants range between about $10,000 and $1 million. More information on the foundation’s partnerships may be found in its Past Grants database. According to the foundation’s website it “rarely, if ever, fund(s) unsolicited proposals.”
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