The majority of educational grants for minority students come from the U.S. government. These may or may not be referred to specifically as minority grants. For example, as grants.com points out, "although the Pell Grant is available for anyone, there are provisions within the grant that allocate additional funds to minorities under certain circumstances."
However, many grants are specifically aimed at minorities, both ethnic and non-ethnic. For instance, the $3,000,000 in grants provided by the Community Development Work-Study Program require recipients to be members of a minority group or specialized group such as health professionals, students or veterans.
Likewise, the Minority International Research Training Grant in the Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences consists of $5,455,000 targeted at racial and ethnic minorities, teachers, students and other specialized groups.
A number of minority foundations bestow educational grants. Some foundations exist solely for the purpose of funding minority education, while others are general advocacy groups which also make educational grants.
Hispanic students, for example, can benefit from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which awarded $28 million in scholarships for the 2008-2009 school year to 4600 Hispanic students. The Hispanic College Fund is a similar organization which grants scholarships of between $500 and $10,000 to Hispanic students.
African-American students can apply for a wide variety of grants. The Black Excel College Help Network lists a full 200 of these funding sources on its website.
Corporations and other business organizations can also be sources of educational funding for minorities. Sometimes, these corporate grants require that the student study in certain disciplines and eventually go to work for the sponsoring company. In other cases corporate funds are distributed through third parties, with fewer strings attached.
The National Society of Black Engineers is one such organization. The NSBE attempts to increase the ranks of black engineering professionals by administering a number of scholarship programs. Funds for these grants come from large corporate sponsors such as Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Delta Airlines.