Tag Archives: grant opportunity

Grant name: America’s Music: A Film History of Our Popular Music from Blues to Bluegrass to Broadway
Deadline: March 14, 2012
Amount: $2,500
Awarding institution: National Endowment for the Humanities
Eligible institutions: Libraries (public, academic, special) and nonprofit institutions or venues related to music or American history

Program description

The NEH Small Grants to Libraries and Other Nonprofit Institutions program
brings humanities public programming to libraries and other eligible nonprofit
institutions across the country.

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.

For more information

http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/SGL_BluestoBluegrass.html

The federal grant application process can be quite extensive. If you would like assistance navigating the application requirements, please contact Kathryn Brockmeier at the Nebraska Library Commission by e-mail or phone, 402-471-4002 (toll-free in NE 800-307-2665).

Deadline: Feb. 2, 2012
Amount: Project Grants: $50,000-500,000. Planning Grants: up to $50,000. Nat. Forum Grants: up to $100,000.
Awarding institution: Institute of Museum and Library Services

National Leadership Grants support projects that address challenges faced by the museum, library, and/or archive fields and that have the potential to advance practice in those fields. Successful proposals will seek innovative responses to the challenge(s) identified in the proposals, and will have national impact.

The National Leadership Grant program accepts applications under four main categories:

• Advancing Digital Resources—Support the creation, use, presentation, and preservation of significant digital resources as well as the development of tools to enhance access, use, and management of digital assets.
• Research—Support research that investigates key questions that are important to museum, library, and archival practice.
• Demonstration—Support projects that produce a replicable model or practice that is usable, adaptable, or scalable by other institutions for improving services and performance.
• Library Museum Collaboration Grants— Support collaborative projects (between museums and/or libraries and other community organizations) that address the educational, economic, cultural, or social needs of a community. In 2012, a funding priority will be projects that promote early learning.

Applicants may choose to submit a Project Grant, Planning Grant, or National Forum Grant proposal in any of the above categories.

• Project Grants support fully developed projects for which needs assessments, partnership development, feasibility analyses, prototyping, and other planning activities have been completed.
• Planning Grants allow project teams to perform preliminary planning activities that could lead to a subsequent full project, such as needs and feasibility analyses, solidifying partnerships, developing project work plans, or developing prototypes or proofs of concept. Applications for Planning Grants must include at least one formal partner in addition to the lead applicant.
• National Forum Grants provide the opportunity to convene qualified groups of experts and key stakeholders to consider issues or challenges that are important to libraries, museums, and/or archives across the nation. Grant-supported meetings are expected to produce widely disseminated reports with expert recommendations for action or research that address a key challenge identified in the proposal. The expert recommendations resulting from these meetings are intended to guide future proposals to the National Leadership Grant program.

Eligibility: Libraries that fulfill the general criteria for libraries may apply. See program guidelines for special conditions of eligibility for this program. Museums that fulfill the general criteria for museums may apply. Public or private nonprofit agencies, organizations, or associations that engage in activities designed to advance museums and the museum profession may also apply. In addition, institutions of higher education, including public and non¬profit universities, are eligible.

More information is available at http://www.imls.gov/applicants/detail.aspx?GrantId=14.

Deadline: Feb. 2, 2012
Amount: $10,000 – $25,000
Awarding institution: Institute of Museum and Library Services

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.

To maximize the public benefit from federal investments in these grants, the Sparks Grants will fund only projects with the following characteristics:

Broad Potential Impact—You should identify a specific problem or need that is relevant to many libraries, archives, and/or museums, and propose a testable and measurable solution. Proposals must demonstrate a thorough understanding of current issues and practices in the project’s focus area and discuss its potential impact within libraries, archives, and/or museums. Proposed innovations should be widely adoptable or adaptable.

Significant Innovation—The proposed solution to the identified problem must offer strong potential for non-incremental, significant advancement in the operation of libraries, archives, and/or museums. You must explain how the proposed activity differs from current practices or takes advantage of an unexplored opportunity, and the potential benefit to be gained by this innovation.

Eligibility: Libraries that fulfill the general criteria for libraries may apply. Museums that fulfill the general criteria for museums may apply. Public or private nonprofit agencies, organizations, or associations that engage in activities designed to advance museums and the museum profession may also apply. In addition, institutions of higher education, including public and nonprofit universities, are eligible.

For more information: http://www.imls.gov/applicants/detail.aspx?GrantId=19

Date posted: October 27, 2011
Closing date for applications: January 11, 2012

In the National Endowment for the Humanities America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations grant program, eligible project formats include but are not limited to museum and library exhibitions, interpretive websites and other digital projects, interpretations of historic places, reading and discussion groups, and related programs. Applicants are encouraged to consider more than one format for presenting humanities ideas to the public. Projects should encourage dialogue, discussion, and civic engagement, and they should foster learning among people of all ages. Humanities projects tailored to particular groups, such as families, youth, seniors, at-risk communities, and veterans are welcomed.

NEH offers two categories of grants for America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations: planning and implementation grants.

Planning grant details: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/AHCO_PlanningGuidelines.html
Implementation grant details: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/AHCO_ImplementationGuidelines.html