Stand Together is a philanthropic community that helps America’s boldest changemakers tackle the root causes of our country’s biggest problems, from education to the economy, broken communities, and toxic division, among dozens of other pressing issues. We provide our partners with access to resources including funding, a unique network of peers, and a playbook for applying proven principles to transform lives and society.

Foreign Policy Grants

A government’s most important task is to secure the rights and liberties of its citizens—in part, by providing for the common defense. For this reason, the United States should maintain a strong military to keep America safe, prosperous, and free.

In recent decades, the United States has pursued an approach to foreign policy known as primacy or liberal hegemony. This foreign policy has required active and aggressive U.S. military engagement around the globe that has undermined our safety and imperiled our prosperity and liberties.

The Trust supports scholars and institutions interested in challenging the current approach, providing alternative visions for U.S. foreign policy, and engaging in research that can bridge the gap between ideas and policy. The Trust is especially interested in foreign policy research projects from political science, international relations, history, or economics. However, proposals from all fields will be considered on their merits.

Grant Info

We are especially interested in research that:

Explores topics and issues related to a grand strategy of restraint.
Examines the role of values and ethics in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
Addresses the unintended consequences of U.S. military actions abroad and explores the costs and impact of engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and other places where significant counterterrorism efforts have been conducted.
Considers the impact of U.S. military engagement abroad on American society—for instance, the effect of our foreign policy decisions on civil liberties or the health and welfare of veterans.
Explores the concept of threat inflation and problematizes theories of credibility and reputation in relation to U.S. foreign policy.
Analyzes executive–legislative relations in foreign policy, including the constitutional division of war powers.
Examines the impact of domestic interest groups, businesses, think tanks, and the permanent national security bureaucracy on U.S. foreign policy.
Explores the growth of the intelligence and national security establishments since 9/11.
Surveys the costs, risks, and impacts of foreign aid and alliance commitments.
Studies the costs and benefits of burden-sharing and burden-shifting with current allies.
Scrutinizes Pentagon spending, force structure, and the strategic demands of U.S. defense policy—including structural incentives for military expenditures.
Considers the consequences of an increasingly multipolar world, especially as concerns principal geostrategic regions (e.g., Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and the Western Pacific).
Explores how changes in technology (such as A2/AD) that impact the offense-defense balance can be leveraged to support a sound approach to grand strategy.

Grant Criteria

Please submit a brief of no more than 3 pages that details the scope of the project. We are open to any type of project: papers, communications campaigns, conferences and convenings, school tours, and much more (we welcome creative ideas).

Funding

Funding levels are commensurate with the requirements of the research and the potential for the research to advance an understanding of critical issues. Accepted proposals may also receive support to disseminate the research findings.

Stand Together Foundation Inc

Up to US $100,000