Small Grants to Libraries (NEH)

America’s Music: A Film History of Our Popular Music from Blues to Bluegrass to Broadway is a six-week public program featuring documentary film screenings and scholar-led discussions of twentieth-century American popular music. The six sessions focus on these uniquely American musical genres: blues and gospel, Broadway, jazz, bluegrass and country, rock n’ roll, and mambo and hip hop. The project will provide DVDs of compelling documentary films, discussion guidelines, original essays by eminent scholars, extensive resource guides, and Web support. The project will offer participating organizations training in how to organize, promote, and run the series successfully. All libraries and nonprofit organizations selected to implement the public program will receive grants of $2,500 for project expenses. Fifty organizations (libraries and other eligible nonprofits) will be selected to receive a grant to present this series of community programs on the history of American popular music. The grantee institutions are expected to offer the programs between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2013.

Amount: $2,500

Date due: March 14, 2012

For more information, click here.

Sparks! Ignitition Grants for Libraries

The Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries and Museums are a special funding opportunity within the IMLS National Leadership Grants program. These small grants encourage libraries, museums, and archives to test and evaluate specific innovations in the ways they operate and the services they provide. Sparks Grants support the deployment, testing, and evaluation of promising and groundbreaking new tools, products, services, or organizational practices. You may propose activities or approaches that involve risk, as long as the risk is balanced by significant potential for improvement in the ways libraries and museums serve their communities.

Successful proposals will address problems, challenges, or needs of broad relevance to libraries, museums, and/or archives. A proposed project should test a specific, innovative response to the identified problem and present a plan to make the findings widely and openly accessible.

Amount: $25,000

Date due: February 12, 2012

For more information, click here.

America's Historical and Cultural Organizations Grants

Deadlines: January 11, 2012, and August 15, 2012.

The Division of Public Programs at the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities funds humanities projects that are intended for broad public audiences at museums, libraries, historic sites and other historical and cultural organizations.

New application guidelines are now posted on the NEH Web site for the America's Historical and Cultural Organizations grant competition.

Grants support interpretive exhibitions, reading or film discussion series, historic site interpretation, lecture series and symposia, and digital projects. NEH especially encourages projects that offer multiple formats and make creative use of new technology to deliver humanities content.

 

America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations awards typically do not exceed $400,000, projects of a smaller scope are also considered. Example grant projects include:

• traveling exhibitions that are presented at multiple venues;
• long-term exhibitions at one institution;
• interpretive websites or other digital formats;
• interpretation of historic places or areas;
• reading and discussion programs;
• panel exhibitions that travel widely, reach a broad audience, and take advantage of complementary programming formats (e.g., reading and discussion series, radio, or other media) to enhance the visitor experience; and
• other project formats that creatively engage audiences in humanities ideas.

Become a Foundation Center Cooperating Collection

The Foundation Center is looking for host organizations to join their network of more than 450 Cooperating Collections across the country and in several locations around the world. These funding information centers are available to grantseekers at no cost and and provide access to Foundation Directory Online grantseeking database, Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, Philanthropy In/Sight, an interactive mapping tool that reveals patterns of giving and funding relationships, a core collection of Foundation Center directories and publications, and a selection of supplementary materials and services in areas useful to grantseekers. The CCs offer educational sessions for the public, including classes on the basics of grantseeking and dialogues with local donors. And they serve as hosts for free Center webinars and the Center's fee-based, full-day grantseeker training courses.

The Foundation Center is expanding the CC network to ensure that grantseekers across the nation, and selectively in other locations around the globe, have access to high-quality resources and expertise, enabling them to attract and sustain support for their organizations. Qualified institutions include (but are not limited to):

• Public, academic, or special libraries
• Nonprofit resource centers
• Community or other foundations
• State associations
• United Way agencies
• Non-governmental organizations in locations outside the U.S.

Host institutions must:

• Be open to the public, without restriction, at least 25 hours per week
• Be located in an area serving at least 100 nonprofit organizations
• Provide access to a computer(s) connected to the Internet for public use
• Have staff available to develop expertise in foundation funding resources and to assist the public in their use
• Be prepared to offer public training on the basics of grantseeking
• Send a representative to regional and/or national meetings of Cooperating Collection supervisors held at various locations and/or participate in virtual conferences held by the Center
• Pay an annual membership fee of $995 (billed on a calendar year basis)

More details are available on the Foundation Center website.

DonorsChoose.org

While not officially a grant, I couldn't resist posting this wonderful website for public school teachers AND public school librarians. You can post your project and list resources requested and then individual donors view proposals and make donations. 63% of projects get fully funded, and $86 million dollars has been donated to over 210,000 projects. Each proposal gets its own page with a written description from the teacher and detailed information on the classroom, project, school and funding needed. Since many individuals prefer to give locally, make sure your school library has a proposal available on DonorsChoose.org for funding!

Beyond Words: the Dollar General School Library Relief Fund

Deadline: Ongoing, applications reviewed monthly,

Dollar General, in collaboration with the American Library Association (ALA), the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the National Education Association (NEA), is sponsoring a school library disaster relief fund for public school libraries in the states served by Dollar General.

Grants will be awarded to public school libraries that have incurred substantial damage or hardship due to a natural disaster (tornado, earthquake, hurricane, flood, avalanche, mudslide), fire or an act recognized by the federal government as terrorism. Grants for $5,000 to $15,000 are to replace or supplement books, media and/or library equipment in the school library setting. The impact can be through direct loss or through an increase in enrollment due to displaced/evacuated students. More information and the grant application are available through the AASL website.

ALTAFF Major Benefactor Citation

Deadline: Ongoing

While this is not a grant, it could be a nice way to recognize your library's major contributors and grant funders. The Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), awards the Major Benefactor Citation to recognize individuals, families, or corporations that have given them major tangible gifts. The citation comes with a plaque for the library, a plaque for the donor, a library celebration, and a library press release to let the community know that gifts to the library are truly appreciated and make a real difference.

Libraries may apply for the Major Benefactor Citation at any time by visiting the website. Requirements include benefits to the library in the form of money, real or personal property, negotiable paper or other tangible contributions, endorsement by the Board of Trustees of the library involved and a fee of $400 ($300 for ALTAFF members) to cover all administrative costs and materials.

ALA Library grant to host exhibit

The American Library Association Public Programs Office, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the National Endowment for the Humanities invite public, academic, and special libraries to apply to host "Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible," a traveling exhibition to America's libraries.

Created to mark the 400th anniversary of the first printing of the King James Bible, the exhibition tells the story of the origins, creation, and impact of the King James Bible, including its influence on English and American literature and its multifaceted impact on culture and society up to the present day. Three copies of the exhibit will travel to forty libraries from the fall of 2011 through the winter of 2013.

Successful applicants will host the exhibit for a four-week period between the fall of 2011 and the winter of 2013 and will receive a $2,500 grant from NEH for attendance at an exhibit-planning workshop and other exhibit-related expenses. Participating libraries are expected to present at least two free public programs featuring a lecture or discussion by a qualified scholar on exhibition themes.

Due: April 5, 2011

For more information, click here.

Preservation and Access Research and Development Grants

Preservation and Access Research and Development grants support projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources. These challenges include the need to find better ways to preserve materials of critical importance to the nation’s cultural heritage—from fragile artifacts and manuscripts to analog recordings and digital assets subject to technological obsolescence—and to develop advanced modes of searching, discovering, and using such materials. Applicants should define a specific problem, devise procedures and potential solutions, and explain how they would evaluate their projects and disseminate their findings. Project results must serve the needs of a significant segment of humanists. Eligible projects include the development of technical standards, best practices, and tools for preserving and creating access to humanities collections; the exploration of more effective scientific and technical methods of preserving humanities collections; the development of automated procedures and computational tools to integrate, analyze, and repurpose humanities data in disparate online resources; and the investigation and testing of new ways of providing digital access to humanities materials that are not easily digitized using current methods. NEH especially encourages applications that address the following topics: Digital Preservation: how to preserve digital humanities materials, including born-digital materials, for which there is no analog counterpart; Recorded Sound and Moving Image Collections: how to preserve and increase access to the record of the twentieth century contained in these formats; and Preventive Conservation: how to protect and slow the deterioration of humanities collections through the use of sustainable preservation strategies.

Amount: $350,000

Date due: May 19, 2011

For more information, click here.

The Wish You Well Foundation Literacy Grants

Deadline: Ongoing

Established in 2002, the Wish You Well Foundation has the mission of "supporting family literacy in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of new and existing literacy and educational programs." Visit the foundation website for a link to the short proposal and a list of past funded programs, including public and school libraries. The Wish You Well Foundation reviews donation requests with a wide array of funding needs. Most requests range from $200 to $10,000. Organizations are reminded to base their requested amount on the program's unique needs for funding.

ALA Awards

The American Library Association has extended the deadline for a number of ALA-administered awards and grants, including the ALA Information Today Library of the Future Award, the Beta Phi Mu Award, the Gale Cengage Learning Financial Development Award, the Paul Howard Award for Courage, the Lippincott Award, and the Scholastic Library Publishing Award, to February 1, 2011.

The ALA Information Today Library of the Future Award honors a library, library consortium, group of librarians, or support organization for innovative planning for, applications of, or development of patron training programs about information technology in a library setting. The award includes $1,500 and a gold-framed citation.

The Beta Phi Mu Award is presented to a faculty member of a library school or an individual for distinguished service to education in librarianship. The award includes $1,000 and a gold-framed citation.

The Gale Cengage Learning Financial Development Award is given to a library organization that exhibited meritorious achievement in carrying out a library financial development project to secure new funding resources for a public or academic library. The award includes $2,500 and a gold-framed citation.

The Paul Howard Award for Courage is a bi-annual award consisting of $1,000 and a gold-framed citation of achievement honoring a librarian, library board, library group, or an individual who has exhibited unusual courage for the benefit of library programs or services.

The Joseph W. Lippincott Award is given to a librarian for distinguished service to the profession. To qualify, the librarian must display outstanding participation in professional library activities, notable published professional writing, or other significant activities on behalf of the profession. The award includes $1,000 and a gold-framed citation.

The Scholastic Library Publishing Award is an annual award consisting of $1,000 and a gold-framed citation presented to a librarian whose "unusual contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by children and young people" exemplifies outstanding achievement in the profession.

For more information, click here.