IdentifyingDeveloping Funding Sources for Liberal Arts and Humanities

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Identifying/Developing Funding Sources for
Liberal Arts and Humanities

• Deborah Porter, Ph.D.
• Director of Grants and Contracts
• TAMU-Commerce

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Realities in Current Climate

• It doesnt take an expensive NMR machine to
  detect irony in a passage of literature, nor an
  costly ion mobility quadrapole time-of-flight
  mass spectrometer to study Samoan culture.
• Humanists, social scientists, and artists DO,
  however, require financial support for their
  research.
• Funding for Sciences FAR outweighs funds for the
  arts and humanities.
• Vital Signs Snapshots of Arts funding--
• http//foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research
  /pdf/artsfunding_08.pdf
• www.Foundationcenter.org

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Where to Start

• 3 Words!!!...Google, Google, Google!
• Foundation Center
• www.foundationcenter.org
• National Endowment for the Arts
• www.nea.gov
• http//www.nea.gov/grants/apply/index.html
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• www.neh.gov
• www.neh.gov/grants/grantsbydivision.html
• Sign up for alerts at grants.gov and other sites
• Volunteer to be a grant reviewer.

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State Funding

• Humanities Texas
• www.humanitiestexas.org/
• www.humanitiestexas.org/grants/
• Texas Commission for the Arts
• http//www.arts.state.tx.us/
• http//www.arts.state.tx.us/index.php?optioncom_w
  rapperviewwrapperItemid86

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Private Funding

• Foundation Center
• MapShot Community Foundations
• http//www.arts.state.tx.us/index.php?optioncom_w
  rapperviewwrapperItemid86
• Foundation searches
• Local foundations, contacts from Offices of
  Advancement

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Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities
Research

• http//glasscockcenter.blogspot.com/
• Great Place to find out about current and past
  humanities funding opportunities

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TAMU-Office of Proposal Development (OPD)

• Mike Cronans Great Team!
• http//opd.tamu.edu/
• http//opd.tamu.edu/funding-opportunities/funding-
  opportunities-by-category/funding-for-the-humaniti
  es.html
• List of Programs for Junior Faculty
• http//opd.tamu.edu/funding-opportunities/funding-
  opportunities-by-category/junior-faculty-programs.
  html

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Latest Greatest Alert from OPD Sample of the
communications from Mike Cronan (11-3-08)

• 2009 Summer Programs in the Humanities for
  Teachers
• http//www.neh.gov/projects/summer09.html
• Due March 2
• Summer Seminars and Institutes for College and
  University TeachersSummer Seminars and
  Institutes for College and University Teachers
  allow college and university faculty to gain a
  deeper knowledge of current scholarship in key
  fields of the humanities.
• Landmarks of American History and Culture
  Workshops for Community College FacultyLandmarks
  of American History and Culture Workshops provide
  community college educators with the opportunity
  to engage in intensive study and discussion of
  important topics in American history.
• Landmarks of American History and Culture
  Workshops for School TeachersLandmarks of
  American History and Culture Workshops provide
  the opportunity for K-12 educators to engage in
  intensive study and discussion of important
  topics in American history.
• Summer Seminars and Institutes for School
  TeachersSummer Seminars and Institutes for
  School Teachers provide K-12 educators with a
  means to deepen scholarship in the humanities.

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Dont Sweat the Small Stuff!

• Dont overlook smaller opportunities. 30K can
  sometimes do a lot in social science.
• Small grants can add up to a major project like
  quilt pieces.
• Smaller preliminary studies/projects can be
  leveraged into larger projects and attract
  national funders.

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Search for these Additional Resources

• Economic Impact of Americas Nonprofit Arts
  Culture Industry
• Strategies for Writing Persuasive Proposals in
  the Humanities
• OPD site also has great resources to help with
  the justification for arts and humanities funding
  and grant development strategies.

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Developing Funding Opportunities for the Research
in the ARTS and HUMANITIESYes, You Can!!!

• Pursue Your Passion
• Find Your Audience
• Tell Your Story

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Pursue Your Passion

• Clarify your research agenda
• This must be communicated whether you are
  developing personal relationships on campus, in
  conversations with funders, or in the actual
  grant proposal.
• Who, What, Why, Where and When?
• Conquer fear!
• By clarifying your own research agenda, you can
  better identify the best source of funding and
  support and keep your message consistent.

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Office of Sponsored Programs and Office of
Graduate Studies and Research Grant Request

• Executive Summary Requirements
• Provide narrative overview of project you want
  funded.
• (No longer than one page)
• Include Topic, research potential, significance
  to the university
• Indicate level of collaboration and names of
  potential Co-PIs
• Specify whether project will involve students as
  participants
• Identify any human subjects research issues.
• Estimate total amount of funding required.
• Submit to Director of Grants and Contracts via
  email at Deborah_porter_at_tamu-commerce.edu.

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Several Issues Affecting the Pursuit of Your
Passion

• Interests vary across the arts and humanities
  facultyin seeking and writing grants.
• Tenure decisions- does the time on extramural
  grant pursuit pay off?
• Where do you find time for grant development as
  well as grant implementation?
• Other?

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Benefits of receiving external funding

• Buy out teaching/Course Release time
• Recruit top graduate students
• Advance your research agenda
• Travel to exhibits, conferences, and archives.
• Support for dissemination of your work (the costs
  of reprinting quotations and mailing manuscripts
  or artwork can be significant)
• Time to create new art and new knowledge

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2. Find Your Audience

• Find and know the target audience- a) for your
  research, b) to hear your ideas for funding, c)
  to build successful collaborations.
• Be aware of the types of projects that are
  supported by the agency/organization.
• Dont write a grant that wont be funded!
• How do you know?
• Review the mission of the funding agency.
• Look at funding patterns in the past.
• Look at weight of points in the review process
  if that information is provided in the
  application guidelines.

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Building Successful Collaborations in theArts
and Humanities

• What are the issues of collaboration in arts and
  humanities?
• Where are the possibilities for interdisciplinary
  relationships
• How can we build long term, bottom up
  coordination where each party stays true to their
  individual research agendas.
• Respect and understanding of each partners
  theoretical interests and each others standards
  for their discipline is vital.

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3. Tell Your Story

• Storytelling, songwriting, creating a painting or
  sculpture are all powerful art forms with the
  ability to transport listeners and viewers to
  another place and inform them about people and
  conditions they may know nothing about.
• The study of humanity, history and culture is as
  important as splitting the atom.

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Three Approaches to Grant Writing and Grant
Development

• The Root Canal Approach
• Into the Mystic Approach
• Sing me a Story, Tell me a Song

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The Root Canal Approach

• Grant writing is a necessary evil.
• Grant writing is to be avoided at all costs.
• Strategies?... Bring on the Nitrous.

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Into the Mystic Approach

• Grant writing is a mystical process in a far,
  away land.
• Only the Devine who possess the lucky charms are
  transported successfully and return with the pot
  o gold.
• (Strategies?- Hire Merlin)

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Sing me a Story, Tell me a Song Approach

• Grantwriting is a creative process whose aim is
  to engage the reader while coloring inside the
  lines.
• Strategies? Find a comfortable match, get to
  know your audience, decide whether to invite a
  friend, go to your quiet place and write a good
  story, tell the truth, ask permission first,
  follow the yellow brick road, be earnest and
  passionate.

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Storytelling process in pursuit of successful
grants

• Tell Who, What , Why, Where and When.
• Introduce the characters and the setting
  Antagonist (need), a Protagonist (hero with a
  magic sword/plan), other main characters who are
  part of the conflict.
• As you describe the needs you have for the grant
  funding the tension in the story builds.
• Resolution of conflict must occur and guess who
  has the plan---YOU, our hero.
• Grant Summary/Abstract- The Epilogue is defined
  as a short section at the end of a literary
  work, detailing the fate of the characters.
  Think of this like a book jacket. It will be read
  many more times than the entire book.
• The Sequel (Star Wars 99-escape from the
  retirement center). What is your plan for
  sustaining the project or securing continuation
  funding?
• Now for packaging the product-- with
  government grants there is a set format to
  follow. With private foundations there may be
  more wiggle room to be creative. You may be
  submitting online. Dont stumble at this point
  due to the technology.

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Grant-seeking and Grant-writing- are these Arts
or Sciences?

• Both There is an art to matching your particular
  research passion to the funders burning desire
  to fulfill their mission. There is a science to
  the systematic investigation of grant sources and
  grant construction.
• Remember,
• You are not starting with a blank page.
• You have the outline laid out by the grant source
  and instructions for what to put in each section.
  
• You know your own research though you may not
  have strategized an organization of events and
  direction.
• These aspects represent more information than the
  sculptor may have looking at a block of marble,
  or the painter with a blank canvas, the poet or
  playwright with a blank page or an historian on a
  search through dusty archives.
• You can be successful without the Nitrous or
  Merlin!

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So what happens when the dog catches the car?

• Thank the funder, you may need them again.
• Read the reviewers comments.
• Do the work you promised months before.
• Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate. Learn from these
  findings and immediately improve your program.
• Be honest and ethical

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Remember, you can do this?

• Pursue Your Passion
• Find Your Audience
• Tell Your Story
• Call if you need me Deborah Porter,
  903-468-3277, deborah_porter_at_tamu-commerce.edu

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References

• Storytelling for Grant Seekers (Clarke, 2001)
• Grantseekers Toolkit (New Quick, 1998)
• Demystifying Grant Seeking (Brown Brown, 2001)