Join us for a one-day retreat to support library worker wellbeing! All library staff at SELS member libraries are invited to attend for free!
June 11
Small and mid-sized cultural organizations are keepers of history and culture, sources of lifelong learning, and community place makers. Public Impact Projects grants seek to assist you in meeting your community’s needs by expanding the scope, reach, and excellence of your public programs. These awards support a variety of activities that focus on enriching interpretive strategies, strengthening interpretive skill sets or enhancing community engagement with public-facing programs. This program aims to meet small and mid-sized organizations where you are by supporting projects that are appropriate in scope and content to each organization’s resources and community needs. The key questions this program asks you to consider are: What are your organization’s interpretive humanities needs or programmatic goals? How would meeting these needs or goals benefit public audiences?June 11
The Digital Projects for the Public program supports projects that interpret and analyze humanities content in primarily digital platforms and formats, such as websites, mobile applications and tours, interactive touch screens and kiosks, games, and virtual environments. All projects should demonstrate the potential to attract a broad, general, nonspecialist audience, either online or in person at venues such as museums, libraries, or other cultural institutions. Applicants may also choose to identify particular communities and groups, including students, to whom a project may have particular appeal.June 20
The Tourism Grant provides funding to support tourism marketing campaigns and initiatives of primary Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) for the economic benefit of their communities. Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) defined as: » Legally organized, nonprofit (501c6 or 501c3) Minnesota organizations whose primary purpose is to market their community or area for tourism or have been appointed this authority by the area(s) they represent. Examples of eligible organizations include, but are not limited to, convention and visitor bureaus, chambers of commerce and resort associations. This grant application requires a 1:1 cash match, meaning for every dollar awarded, the grantee must contribute an equal amount of funding from their own resources.June 30
T-Mobile Hometown Grants is a $25 million, five-year initiative to support the people and organizations who help small towns across America thrive and grow. Hometown Grants are given every quarter to up to 25 small towns. Elected officials, town managers/employees, tribal leaders, and nonprofit community leaders from town with a population less than 50,000 can apply for up to $50,000 in funding to support a community project of your choice, like revitalizing or repurposing a historic structure, creating a downtown asset or destination, or improving a space where friends and neighbors gather. Projects that add to a sense of place or could lead to further investment are of particular interest.July 10
Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) provides expansive funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and culture ecosystem. Through project-based funding, the program supports opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector. Applications are welcomed from organizations serving rural, urban, suburban, and tribal communities of all sizes; and from organizations with small, medium, or large operating budgets. This grant funds art projects in the following disciplines: Artist Communities, Arts Education, Dance, Design, Folk & Traditional Arts, Literary Arts, Local Arts Agencies, Media Arts, Museums, Music, Musical Theater, Opera, Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works, Theater, and Visual Arts.July 11
These grants primarily fund projects that can be completed within 12 months. Small grants award notifications are sent eight weeks after the application deadline. While there is no pre-application process for small grants, Grants Office staff are available to discuss your project as you prepare your application. If not funded, you will receive feedback on your application so that you can strengthen it and re-apply in another cycle. Structured grants, a simplified small grant option, are tailored to specific types of projects, such as developing a disaster plan for a small repository, acquiring microfilm, or conducting a museum self-assessment. All structured grants are small grants, and follow the small grants process listed above; however, the applicant must simply use the appropriate short form structured grant application rather than the standard Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grants application form. MNHS small grants are awarded quarterly, and applications are due on the second Friday of January, April, July, and October.July 14
Through its Public Libraries Program, the Yiddish Book Center provides grants, resources and training to public libraries across the country to host reading groups. This program brings Yiddish literature in translation to public libraries across the United States to deepen their engagement with Yiddish literature and Jewish life, religion, and culture, and to foster vibrant cross-cultural dialogue and discussion in their communities. Each year, the Center works with 40 libraries in communities across the United States. The current theme is Between Two Worlds: Exploring Jewish Culture and Religion through Yiddish Literature.July 16
HCRR advances scholarship, education, and public engagement in the humanities by helping libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country steward important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects. The program strengthens efforts to make the content of such materials accessible through digitization and description. Awards also support the creation of reference resources that facilitate the use of cultural materials, from works that provide basic information quickly to tools that synthesize and codify knowledge of a subject for in-depth investigation.July 18
The Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grants program —also known as Legacy Grants — is a competitive process created to provide financial support for projects focused on preserving Minnesota’s history and culture. Eligible projects fall into three project categories: community history projects, historic preservation projects, and structured grants. Keep in mind that these are guidelines, not a catalog of all possible projects. In addition, some projects might appear to fit under more than one category. If your planned project does not appear to fit into one of these categories, or if you are unsure which category should be applied to your project, call 651-259-3497 or e-mail the Grants Office before submitting an application.Letter of Intent Opens: July 22
Letter of Intent Due: August 12
Better Communities Grants are Rochester Area Foundation’s competitive grant awards, providing unrestricted funding for the core mission of critical community organizations. The purpose of these grants is twofold. First, we seek to empower nonprofits to expand, improve or pursue their best ideas, and second, to build the capacity and infrastructure of organizations that are poised for growth. RAF recognizes that support for general operations is some of the hardest funding to secure. Yet the uninterrupted running of core organizational activities is essential to the success of thriving communities.July 27
“We Are Water MN” is a Minnesota Humanities Center program that uses the humanities to deepen connections between and among Minnesotans and the water we all rely on, through a network of partnerships, a traveling exhibit, and public events. Each year, five host sites are selected to display the exhibit and engage community members with its content and one another over an eight-week period.August 13
The Public Humanities Projects program supports projects that bring the ideas of the humanities to life for general audiences through public programming. Projects must engage humanities scholarship to analyze significant themes in disciplines such as history, literature, ethics, and art history. Awards support projects that are intended to reach broad and diverse public audiences in non-classroom settings in the United States. Projects should engage with ideas that are accessible to the general public and employ appealing interpretive formats.August 13
The Media Projects program supports the development, production, and distribution of radio programs, podcasts, documentary films, and documentary film series that engage general audiences with humanities ideas in creative and appealing ways. Projects must be grounded in humanities scholarship and demonstrate an approach that is thoughtful, balanced, and analytical. Media Projects offers two levels of funding: Development and Production.August 15
The Lois Lenski Covey Foundation awards grants to organizations that operate a lending bookmobile that travels into neighborhoods populated by underserved youth. The grants are for purchasing books published for young people preschool through grade 8. Bookmobiles operated by charitable [501(c)(3)] and other non-taxable agencies, including public libraries or schools, are eligible. The Foundation provides grants to organizations that serve economically or socially at-risk children, have limited book budgets, and demonstrate real need. Grants range from $500 to $3000 and are specifically for book purchases, and cannot be used for administrative or operational usesSeptember 1
Grants for public programs and community projects are awarded to nonprofit (501(c)3) organizations. These grants encourage the perpetuation of Scandinavian cultural traditions through the support of community events such as festivals, celebrations, and heritage events as well as workshops, performances, classes, and demonstrations. Grants for public programs and community projects range from $5,000 to $50,000.September 30
T-Mobile Hometown Grants is a $25 million, five-year initiative to support the people and organizations who help small towns across America thrive and grow. Hometown Grants are given every quarter to up to 25 small towns. Elected officials, town managers/employees, tribal leaders, and nonprofit community leaders from town with a population less than 50,000 can apply for up to $50,000 in funding to support a community project of your choice, like revitalizing or repurposing a historic structure, creating a downtown asset or destination, or improving a space where friends and neighbors gather. Projects that add to a sense of place or could lead to further investment are of particular interest.October 15
Grants of $1,500 are intended to assist the costume and textiles collection of a small museum (including historical societies, historic houses or sites, and other similar institutions) that has a very limited budget and staff. Funding may be used to support the care, conservation, and/or exhibition of costume and textiles that have historic, regional, or other significance and are intended for preservation.October 15
Grants of $1,500 are intended to assist the costume and textiles collection of a college or university that receives little or no financial support from its institution. Funding may be used to support the care, conservation, and/or instructional mission of a collection of historic, period, or otherwise informative costume and textiles that are intended for preservation and are used for study by an institution that has a degree program in apparel, textiles, or theatre.Letter of inquiry required - invitation to submit a proposal may follow
Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities, supporting ideas and organizations that contribute to a more connected, creative, and just society through four core grantmaking areas and signature Presidential Initiatives. The four core areas are1. Arts and Culture: Art and artists are essential to human connection2. Higher Learning: Knowledge is produced everywhere3. Humanities in Place: How and where we tell our stories matters4. Public Knowledge: Knowledge should be accessible to allMellon only accepts proposals by invitation. If you are interested in funding from Mellon, you can submit a letter of inquiry, which may be followed by an invitation to submit a proposalCurrently not accepting applications, grant portal will reopen in early 2025
The Pomeroy Foundation is interested in a wide range of initiatives that help communities across the country celebrate their history and cultural heritage. Requests for Special Interest Grants can include professional development for small history organizations, technology upgrades for small history organizations, celebrations of significant national milestones in American history, digitization of materials that stabilize collections and increase public access, and more.Rolling Deadline
Believe in Reading awards grants to existing and provably successful literacy programs. Organizations that have been designated as having tax exempt status according to the IRS Code Section 501(c)(3), or its equivalent for educational institutions, including public libraries, can apply. Believe in Reading will consider funding programs that serve any age or aspect of supporting reading and literacy, including adult literacy, English as a second language projects, or Braille related projects for the blind or visually impaired. Because addressing literacy is not a short-term process, Believe in Reading’s grants are renewable for up to a maximum of three years, but a first year award does not guarantee any subsequent awards. At this time, the maximum grant amount is $10,000, however the vast majority of grants awarded are for $3,000 or less. First time applicants will not be funded for more than $3,000.