Investing in courageous and original thinkers for a better America.
The Shelby Steele Foundation provides scholarships to college-bound teens and grants to original thinkers who strive to strengthen the principles and institutions of American exceptionalism — freedom, entrepreneurship, and equality of opportunity for all citizens.
“Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before.”
— Shelby Steele
In 2013, Shelby Steele received a letter from the Ray Morgan Jr. estate that stated he was the recipient of funds to disperse to college-bound high schoolers as well as original thinkers who embraced the values of individualism, freedom, and original thought — values that Morgan Jr. admired in Steele’s writings.
Steele vaguely remembered the name, Ray Morgan, from his childhood and discovered that he and his father, Ray Morgan Sr., were the producers behind the legendary show, “Queen for a Day.” Launched in 1945, the show, which inspired today’s reality television genre, took over 5,000 ordinary women and treated them like a queen for a day. Over $17 million in prizes were handed out —a staggering total even by today’s standards.
Steele thought the letter too good to be true and dropped it into his trash bin. Nine years later, in 2022, the Morgan estate reached out to Steele again and informed him that the original letter was indeed real. Steele found himself honored and humbled by such a generous gift and is proud to pay this good deed forward to scholars and original thinkers across America.
THE STORY
The Shelby Steele Foundation recognizes that its mission of advancing American exceptionalism strongly relies on the passion, hard work, and dedication of original thinkers across America. While we consider every individual, we believe there is a strong need to contribute to the transformation and upward mobility of promising original thinkers who come from underserved areas with little to no social capital.
At this time, the Foundation will not be accepting individual submissions for scholarships. Instead, the Foundation partners with schools and organizations to identify promising college-bound students. If you believe your school and organization subscribes to our values, please contact us.
THE SHELBY STEELE - RAY MORGAN SCHOLARSHIP
The Shelby Steele Foundation seeks to support original thinkers and their endeavors through grants. Due to culture war biases, many worthy individuals who embrace the America principles do not receive funding from key philanthropic organizations.
Shelby Steele knows how crucial outside funding has been to his long career of original thinking and knows that identifying promising projects is a key element in making America better. Whether it is a business or creative endeavor, the Foundation seeks to fill that gap by identifying projects that embody its mission and are worthy of support.
In addition to grants, the Foundation provides fiscal sponsorships to qualified projects.
Due to a high volume of submissions, only the ones that fit our mission and are deemed promising will receive a request for more information.
ORIGINAL THINKER PROJECTS
The Shelby Steele Foundation Fiscal Sponsorship Program is designed to help artists, especially filmmakers, get their film funded.
The fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which our 501(c)(3) public nonprofit organization agrees to sponsor a project that furthers our mission. Most individual artists do not have their own nonprofit organization that allows them to seek grants and solicit tax-deductible donations for their projects. As the fiscal sponsor, we allow these artists to operate under our nonprofit umbrella in order to receive these benefits that make their projects possible.
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM
“The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance.”
— Shelby Steele
SHELBY STEELE
As a young man, Shelby Steele aspired to be a writer. He taught at San Jose State University for over two decades while writing on the side. For years, Steele visited his mailbox only to see that his essay had been rejected by a major magazine. He would remove the essay from the old envelope and immediately send it off in a new envelope to the next magazine.
Then one day, the publisher from Commentary Magazine called Steele and said he wanted to publish his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class.” Six months later, Harper’s Magazine published one of Steele’s more famous essays, “I’m Black, You’re White, Who’s Innocent?”
Steele’s ongoing success brought controversy. His original thinking on race-relations and affirmative action were not popular on the campus where he taught and he was canceled, to borrow the term from today’s culture wars.
He persevered and went on to become a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 1990, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his book, “The Content of Our Character.” In 1991, his work on the documentary “Seven Days in Bensonhurst” was recognized with an Emmy Award and two awards for television documentary writing — the Writer's Guild Award and the San Francisco Film Festival Award. His 1998 documentary, “Jefferson’s Blood,” for PBS’ Frontline also was critically acclaimed.
Since then, he has written four books: “Dream Deferred,” “White Guilt,” “A Bound Man,” and “Shame.”
In 2004, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal and, in 2006, he received the Bradley Prize.
Then in 2020, when Steele thought he could not be canceled any further, his latest documentary produced by Man of Steele Productions, “What Killed Michael Brown?” was canceled by Amazon. After a flurry of protests led by Wall Street Journal, the film was reinstated and took the top spot for documentaries.
Throughout his controversial career, Steele knows he could not have achieved his success without his supporters. That is why he is proud to helm this Foundation as a way of supporting the up and coming generation.
Contact
Please feel free to contact us with any questions. While we cannot answer every question, we will do our best.