The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities Grantmaking Program funds individuals and organizations to stimulate new research in the humanities, spark thoughtful community exchange, build new audiences for the humanities, innovate new methods in the humanities, and advocate for the importance of the humanities for a lively and engaged democratic public.
Announcement – FY24 Grantmaking Cycle Now Open with Program Updates! (September 2023)
We are excited to announce the opening of our FY24 major and mini grantmaking program! Informed by best practices in grantmaking as well as feedback from our applicant and grantee communities, we have made some revisions with the goals of increased clarity, transparency, accessibility, and navigability. We will continue to evaluate our program with these goals in mind. The funding priorities, structure, and content of the program have remained constant.
Please consult our updated Grants Guidelines for all the details on our revised program. You can also review PDFs of our current mini grant applications below, as well as access them live in our application portal.
Some key highlights:
- Eligible individuals can now apply for public project mini grants as well as research project mini grants. Eligible organizations can now apply for research project mini grants as well as public project mini grants and all major grants.
- The deadline to submit the major grant Letter of Intent form is now Dec. 1 rather than Nov. 1, and all applications are now due at 11:59 pm EST on the day of the deadline.
- The Grants Guidelines now contain a glossary of key terms and concepts, including the following: humanities, humanities content, humanities methods, public humanities, research projects, public projects, and civic health.
- Mini and major grant application questions have been edited for clarity and organized into three main categories: Project Plan; Connection to the Humanities; and Community Engagement.
- Each mini and major grant application now has questions about the humanities content and humanities methods for a project.
- The required evaluation plan may now use any evaluation framework, rather than only the framework provided by the Council.
- And other improvements to the application process, including conditional questions based on applicant type (individual or organization); suggested response lengths; and digital signatures.
All of these updates, and an overview of our program, are covered in our virtual grants information session, which you can watch here and below. Additionally, for additional transparency, we will release the mini grant assessment rubric used by reviewers in the next few weeks.
We look forward to supporting another season of rich, diverse, and impactful projects in the public humanities. And, we look forward to hearing your thoughts, feedback and questions!
Questions?
If you are interested in learning more about the Council’s grantmaking program, please contact the Council’s grantmaking staff–we would love to hear from you!
If you have not applied for a Council grant in the last five years, we particularly encourage you to reach out at least two weeks before an application deadline. Staff can answer your questions, discuss your project, and potentially provide feedback on an application draft–all support options that can strengthen your application.
Our grantmaking staff, Julia Renaud, Associate Director of Grants and Strategic Initiatives and Melissa Wong, Grantmaking Program Coordinator, are standing by to help you.
Contact us via email at grants@rihumanities.org or by phone at 401.273.2250.
Watch our 2023-24 Major and Mini Grants Information Session!
Watch this 65-minute recorded session for information on RI Humanities’ major and mini grantmaking program from Nov. 2023 – Oct. 2024, including discussion of program updates: