Arts + Humanities

Here is a list of public and private sponsors who support arts and humanities initiatives.

You can also review a list of common federal granting agencies or search the COS database.

American Association of University Women (AAUW): Seeks to advance educational and professional opportunities for women in the United States and around the globe. Provides grants and fellowships, including:

• American Fellowships: Supports women scholars completing doctoral dissertations, conducting postdoctoral research, or finishing research for publication. Awards for research leave fellowships are $30,000; awards for short-term or summer research publication grants are $6,000.
• Community Action Grants: Provides seed money to women and local community-based nonprofit organizations for innovative programs or non-degree research projects that promote education and equity for women and girls. Awards range from $2,000 to $10,000 over one to two years.

American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS): Offers fellowships and grants in more than a dozen programs for research in the humanities and related social sciences, including international opportunities. For example:

• Fellowships: Invites research applications in all disciplines of the humanities and humanities-related social sciences. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant. Awards vary by faculty status, ranging from $35,000 to $65,000.

American Philosophical Society (APS): Provides fellowships and research grants for a variety of areas, including general publication support, exploratory field studies, APS Library residency, and Native American studies. Programs include:

• Franklin Research Grants: Supports the cost of research leading to publication in all areas of knowledge. Provides up to $6,000 for supplies/expenses. 
• Library Resident Research Fellowship: Offers short-term residential fellowships for conducting research in the APS Library. A stipend of $2,500 per month is awarded for a minimum of one month and a maximum of three months.
• Phillips Fund Grant for Native American Research: Provides grants for research in Native American linguistics, ethnohistory, and the history of studies of Native Americans, in the continental United States and Canada. Awards of up to $3,500 are available for travel and expenses.

Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation: Provides support for the areas of humanities, performing arts, research libraries, and Venetian research. Awards average $5,000 to $25,000.

Ford Foundation: Supports social change worldwide through a variety of initiatives, including transforming secondary education, democratic and accountable government, human rights, educational opportunity, and freedom of expression. Funding ranges from $10,000 to millions.

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): Provides federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. Example programs:

• American Heritage Preservation Grants: Funds the preservation of endangered and fragile collections of art, rare books, scientific specimens, and historical documents (photographs, maps, deeds, etc.) held in the nation's small- and medium-sized museums, archives, and libraries. Awards are up to $3,000.

The Joyce Foundation: Supports efforts to protect the natural environment of the Great Lakes, to reduce poverty and violence in the region, and to ensure that its people have access to good schools, decent jobs, and a diverse and thriving culture. Recent awards have ranged from $25,000 to $200,000.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA): Provides funding for many artistic disciplines, including arts education, literature, music, and theater. Examples include:

• Art Works: Supports the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. Areas of support include Dance, Design, Music, Theater, and Visual Arts. Awards range from $10,000 to $100,000.
• Literature Fellowships for Creative Writing: Enables recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Awards are $25,000.
• Literature Fellowships for Translation Projects: Enables recipients to translate work from other languages into English. Awards are $12,500 or $25,000, depending on the artistic excellence and merit of the project.

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): Provides a variety funding options, including education, preservation and access, and research. Example programs:

• Collaborative Research Grants: Supports original research undertaken by a team of two or more scholars. Awards range from $25,000 to $100,000 per year, over one to three years.
• Fellowships: Supports individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Recipients usually produce articles, monographs, books, digital materials, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly resources. Awards provide a stipend of $4,200 per month, over 6-12 months.
• Summer Seminars and Institutes: Supports faculty development programs in the humanities for school teachers and for college and university teachers. Seminars and institutes may be two to six weeks long and should allow for a rigorous treatment of the topic. Awards range from $60,000 to $200,000, depending on project type.
• Summer Stipends: Supports two consecutive months of full-time research and writing. Summer Stipends normally support work carried out during the summer months, but arrangements can be made for other times of the year. Provides up to $6,000.
  TIP: See the ORSP incentive program, which provides an additional $4,000.
• Teaching Development Fellowships: Helps faculty pursue research aimed specifically at improving their undergraduate teaching. Awards provide a stipend of $4,200 per month, over three to five months.

Irwin Andrew Porter Foundation: Funds innovative projects that foster connections between individuals, communities, the environment, and the world at large. The foundation funds in a broad range of focus areas and is most interested in projects that require and/or inspire those directly benefiting from the project to give back to their communities. Recent awards have ranged from $500 to $30,000.

Samuel Rubin Foundation: Supports the pursuit of peace and justice and the search for an equitable reallocation of the world's resources. Awards average $5,000 to $10,000.

John Templeton Foundation: Supports research across many topics, including creativity, freedom, gratitude, love, and purpose. The Foundation welcomes proposals that bring together these overlapping elements, especially by combining the tools and approaches of different disciplines. Awards range from $10,000 to over $1 million.

U.S. Department of Education (ED): Promotes student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. Example programs:

• Education Research: Supports research activities that will result in the provision of high quality education for all children, improvement in student academic achievement, reduction in the achievement gap between high-performing and low-performing students, and increased access to and opportunity for postsecondary education. Awards range from$75,000 to $2,000,000.
• Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad: Funds fellowships to faculty members who propose to conduct research abroad in modern foreign languages and area studies to improve their skill in languages and their knowledge of the culture of the people of these countries. Faculty are expected to conduct research abroad for 3 to 12 months. Awards average $90,000 in support of travel, stipends, and research-related expenses.