Five Grant Resources for Writers and Artists

Or, There is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch. If you ignore the acres of paperwork involved.

Hoo boy, this is a huge topic (obviously – entire websites are dedicated to it) so I’m going to start with a short list of solid resources we can add to later. (Thanks to reader Kathy for the topic suggestion.)

Mira’s List

On her website, Mira says her goal is to help you find “Money, time and a place to create.” Hallelujah! Her list is my favorite, not only because it’s comprehensive and constantly growing, but Mira is affiliated with A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO), which puts on a retreat for women writers (I’m attending in August – hurray!) and awards the $50,000 Gift of Freedom prize to a woman writer every other year. I Heart AROHO.

Poets & Writers Magazine

The P&W website is chock full of resources for writers, including listings of contests, conferences, and residencies, as well as fun tools like a build-your-own submission calendar, and updates on winners. There’s also a free newsletter which is not only fat with information, but it serves as an email prompt to visit the website and see what’s new. If you’re a writer, this website’s not to be missed.

State Arts Boards

Don’t overlook your state arts board as a resource for money for your project. (In New Mexico it’s New Mexico Arts, for example.) These grants are usually far less competitive than federal grants, and my friend Summer, who is no slouch in the getting grants department, said her experience has been it’s best to start small (like with one of these) and work your way up to the big guns. Grantors, like the next two, often like to see that other (smaller) organizations have deemed you grant-worthy before handing over their cash.

National Endowment for the Arts

The big cheese in the creative grants world is the NEA, and though it’s extremely competitive it’s certainly worth a shot. Since the award amounts are big (they give a creative writing fellowship of $25k, for example) I’m guessing they’re looking for you to have an existing body of work, but they may support emerging artists and writers, too, if you can show great promise in your application. Dream large but have a backup plan, I say.

National Endowment for the Humanities

This one’s good for projects that have an educational or humanitarian bent, so if you’ve got an idea for a documentary about inner-city kids in Detroit, or a nonfiction book about saving the endangered herds of Giant Spotted Appletwizzlers (I was channeling Dr. Seuss for a second), the NEH is a possibility. (And if you are researching Giant Spotted Appletwizzlers, don’t forget to do a Google search to see if there are any nonprofits – say, the Giant Spotted Appletwizzler Foundation – that may be willing to give you a grant to do your work.)

Now that you have a start on researching available grants, the next logical question is how do you write a grant application that might actually get funded. I have no idea, but I plan to find out and let you know.

P.S. I’m toying with the idea of converting from Blogger to Wordpress – if anyone has tips or insights to offer this reasonably smart but not hugely tech savvy Mac user, I’d be grateful.