The Witherspoon Institute frequently provides grants to its fellows and associated scholars for the purpose of supporting their scholarly work. These grants can be project-specific or for general scholarly activity. The Institute does not accept unsolicited grant requests from scholars, and is not responsible for unsolicited grant request materials.

On occasion, the Institute collaborates with institutions of higher learning on large-scale research projects requiring the expertise and resources of a research university. When such a collaboration is established between the Witherspoon Institute and the partner institution, the Institute, when necessary, will provide no more than ten percent (10%) of the total grant amount as overhead to the partner institution.