Top Large Grants Available for NGOs in 2025: Your Guide to Big Impact Funding

If your NGO is poised for scale, a modest grant won’t cut it anymore. In 2025, the big-ticket funders are out—those offering multi-hundred-thousand or multi-million-dollar awards. But as always, landing them takes strategic planning, sharp proposals, and persistence. In this post, we’ll explore some of the top large grants you and your team should watch, compare their features, and offer tips to boost your odds.

Why “Large Grants” Matter Now More Than Ever

When your NGO hits a growth inflection point—expanding scope, launching new national or cross-border programs—the kind of funding you need changes. Small seed grants help you start; large grants help you scale, sustain, and transform.

Here are a few reasons large grants are especially strategic today:

• Longer horizons: Many large grants fund multi-year programs, giving breathing space to iterate and learn.
• Leverage & credibility: Securing a big grant can unlock matching funds, co-funders, or government buy-in.
• Operational support: Some large grants allow portions for core costs (staff, admin, monitoring) rather than being purely project-tied.
• Ambitious goals: Big grants unlock projects with systemic impact—policy work, regional rollout, tech platforms, infrastructure, research, evaluation.

That said, the bar is high. The funder expects strong evidence, results frameworks, credible leadership, and institutional maturity. The negative side is that many NGOs are disqualified simply by lacking the scale, audited finances, or capacity to absorb risk.

What “Large Grant” Looks Like in 2025

Let’s first define thresholds. For this blog’s context, a “large grant” is one that:

• Is at least USD 250,000 (or equivalent in other currencies), or
• Supports a multi-year commitment (2+ years) with substantial payments, or
• Allows some flexibility / unrestricted support beyond project line items.

Below is a comparison table of six prominent 2025 large grant opportunities (or funders that regularly give large grants). These are not guarantees, but leads worth watching and exploring.

* “Typical Amount / Range” is based on recent grant cycles or published data; actual grants may deviate.

These are just a handful of high-potential options. Many more exist, especially in specific geographies or thematic niches (health, education, climate, governance, gender, etc.).

Spotlight: Grants to Watch (Details & Insights)

Let’s dive deeper into a few of these opportunities to understand their nuances, strengths, and caution points.

Open Philanthropy: Big Bets for Big Returns

Open Philanthropy is known for explaining not just which organizations it funds but why—with transparency in its strategic process. In 2025, it has disbursed grants of several million dollars to projects in AI safety, global health, and public-interest tech.

Why it’s powerful

• Strategic, high-ambition grants (not incremental support)
• Often unrestricted or semi-unrestricted core funding
• Willing to take calculated risk on new ideas

Challenges / risks

• Extremely competitive
• Requires deep alignment with their focus areas
• Demands high-level evidence, metrics, sophistication

If you’re working at the intersection of tech, global systems, or transformational social change, this is a funder whose attention you might try to attract.

Action for Women’s Health (Melinda French Gates Open Call)

In 2025, Melinda French Gates launched a bold open call aiming to distribute $1 million to $5 million awards to organizations across the globe for women’s health initiatives. The call prioritizes organizations for which these amounts are transformational.

Opportunities

• Scale and unrestricted support
• Ability to propose bold, audacious programs
• Exposure and legitimacy

Watch-outs

• Application windows can be short
• Strong competition across regions
• Due diligence will be heavy—financials, impact design, governance

If your NGO works in women’s health, gender-based violence, reproductive justice, or maternal care, this is a rare moment to aim high.

OPEC Fund: Traditional Development Grants

The OPEC Fund offers grants for development projects, infrastructure, renewable energy, and poverty alleviation. Their guidelines emphasize measurable development impact, strategic alignment, and institutional capacity.

Compared to philanthropic open calls, this is more “established funding” territory. If your NGO or consortium can show credible track record, feasibility, and alignment with OPEC’s priorities, it’s worth engaging.

The Grant Scouting Process: How to Find & Win Large Grants

Knowing where to look is only half the battle. The following steps and tips increase your odds of capturing large grants.

1: Map your thematic and strategic fit

• List your thematic areas (health, climate, governance, etc.).
• Identify funders whose mission aligns.
• Review past funded projects, not just thematic fits.

2: Monitor active “calls / open calls / Request for Proposals (RFPs)”

• Subscribe to portals like FundsforNGOs or The Grant Portal.
• Set alerts for “large grants,” “multi-year grants,” or specific keywords.
• Follow funders (e.g., foundations, ODA agencies) on social media.

3: Qualitative pre-screening

Before you commit, ask:

• Do we meet basic eligibility (legal status, geography, thematic)?
• Do we have the financials, audit history, governance needed?
• Can we present credible impact evidence or pilot data?

If the answer is “no,” you may expend time for little return.

4: Craft a compelling proposal

Large grants demand premium level quality:

• Narrative with clear logic, theory of change, and milestones
• Strong results framework with indicators, baseline, targets
• Risk mitigation, sustainability plan, institutional capacity
• Budget that balances ambition and realism
• Evidence, monitoring & evaluation (M&E), learning components

5: Build partnerships & co-funders

Large grants often favor consortiums, alliances, or partnerships, especially when covering wide geographies or layered activities. If your NGO lacks capacity in one area (e.g. technical, legal, research), bring a partner who can fill that gap.

6: Prepare for due diligence & stewardship

If shortlisted, funders will dig deep: audits, financials, legal checks, reputation checks. Be ready with documentation, references, governance records, and transparency. Post-award, commit to reporting, engagement, learning, and perhaps site visits.

Risks, Challenges & Negative Realities to Face

Pursuing large grants has its hazards. It’s real, and you should go in eyes open.

• Administrative burden: Proposal writing, reporting, compliance, audits can overwhelm a small team.
• Mission drift: The temptation to reframe programs just to fit funder priorities can dilute authenticity.
• Cash flow strain: Many grants disburse in tranches; you need reserves to bridge gaps.
• Competition fatigue: You may be one among hundreds—or thousands. Rejection is common.
• Dependency risk: Overreliance on one large funder is dangerous if priorities shift.
• Greenlighting unrealistic project designs: Big funders may push boldness—but make sure your capacity matches.

Hence, it’s wise to pursue a portfolio: one or two big bets, plus smaller, more reliable funding sources.

Comparing Large Grants: What to Watch Side by Side

To choose which large grants to pursue, compare them across a few dimensions. Here’s a quick decision-matrix you (or your leadership team) can use:

Additional Large Grant Opportunities (Beyond the Spotlight)

While the earlier table covered high-profile ones, here are more that NGOs should keep on their radar in 2025:

• Global Health & WASH funding calls: Some calls are offering up to USD 600,000 for two-year health & sanitation programs.
• Multi-sector sustainable development prizes: Some competitions pool large sums, with top awardees getting $300,000+ and runners-up $100,000+
• Top 20 global grants currently open (mid-2025): A curated list of big calls across thematic sectors.
• Top 20 Grants in 2025 (FundsforNGOs list): These include many with relatively large amounts.

These are more opportunistic, but worth keeping tabs on—especially for those with flexible programs.

Realistic Scenario: What Could a Winning Large Grant Look Like?

To make this concrete, let’s imagine your NGO works on youth mental health in Sub-Saharan Africa, and you want to scale from three countries to ten.

You find a call from a global health / mental health foundation with an open call awarding USD 2 million over 3 years, Partner NGOs respond jointly, You allocate:

• Year 1: pilot in 3 new countries + build monitoring systems
• Year 2: expand to 7 additional locations
• Year 3: consolidate, generate policy tools, training manuals, cost models

Your budget includes:

• Personnel, operations, training, M&E, travel, office costs, local subgrantee support
• A small “learning fund” to experiment
• Sustainability plan (how to continue post-grant via governments, fee models, etc.)

If awarded, it can shift your NGO from niche to regional scale. But it demands excellent proposal, strong leadership, risk mitigation, and readiness for scaling.

How to Catch the Eyes of Big Funders (Insider Tips)

Here are concrete tips that often distinguish successful applicants:

1. Start with a strong concept note
   Many funders require a short Letter of Inquiry (LOI) or concept memo first. Use this to highlight problem, solution, your unique edge, and preliminary cost/impact.
2. Show results, not just plans
   Funders favor organizations that can show historical outcomes, even in a pilot phase.
3. Include external validation or endorsements
   Letters from respected partners, governments, or academic institutions help.
4. Demonstrate capacity
   Show audited finances, governance structure, leadership bios, risk management ability.
5. Be realistic in budgeting
   Over-optimistic numbers raise red flags. Build in contingency, realistic price levels, inflation, travel.
6. Design learning & iteration
   Big grants often appreciate that you’ll experiment, adapt, and course-correct.
7. Tailor your proposal to the funder
   Use their language (within reason), reflect their priorities in your framing, but keep your authentic mission.
8. Network before applying
   If possible, meet or talk with program officers, attend webinars or info sessions, ask clarifying questions.
9. Prepare excellent visuals
   Charts, logical frameworks, timelines, dashboards—all sharpen readability.
10. Don’t wait for “perfect” readiness
    Some organizations wait until they’re overly confident. Sometimes you learn by applying—even if you don’t win.

When Large Grants Fail: What to Learn from Rejections

A rejection can sting—but it’s part of the ecosystem. Here’s how to bounce back smarter:

• Request feedback (if funder allows)
• Study winner projects if public
• Document internal gaps (capacity, data, team, systems)
• Recalibrate scale (maybe aim for a smaller grant first)
• Maintain relationships with funders—sometimes you get invited next round
• Invest in capacity-building (financial systems, M&E, governance) so next time is stronger

Final Thoughts & Call to Action

Large grants in 2025 are not mythical—they exist, and bold NGOs are winning them. But they demand more than ambition: clarity, maturity, alignment, and resilience. The “big grant leap” can accelerate your impact—but only if you’re ready.

To recap:

• Know what counts as a large grant today
• Watch funders like Open Philanthropy, Melinda French Gates’ open calls, OPEC Fund, CEPF, etc.
• Build internal readiness (finance, M&E, governance)
• Craft proposals that balance ambition and realism
• Keep a diversified funding portfolio