Mission/Giving Statement: The Foundation's grantmaking philosophy is to build, strengthen and sustain institutions and their core capacities, rather than be a source for narrowly defined projects. As such, it develops thoughtful, long-term collaborations with grant recipients and invests sufficient funds for an extended period to accomplish the purpose at hand and achieve meaningful results.
Grantmaking Program Areas: Higher Education & Scholarship; Art History, Conservation and Museums; Scholarly Communications & Information Technology; Performing Arts
Grantmaking Program Area Descriptions:
Higher Education & Scholarship: Supports a wide range of initiatives to strengthen the institutions that sustain scholarship in the humanities and "humanistic" social sciences, primarily research universities but also a small number of centers for advanced study and independent research libraries. Liberal Arts Colleges; and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Diversity Initiatives. Also, Special International Emphasis: South Africa.
Art History, Conservation and Museums: For art museums is designed to help excellent institutions build and sustain their capacity to undertake serious scholarship on their permanent collections; to preserve these collections; and to share the results of their work in appropriate ways with scholarly and other audiences. The art conservation program concentrates largely on advanced training for future generations of conservators, but it also undergirds fundamental work in developing fields such as photograph conservation and conservation science – areas of increasing importance to conservation as a whole. Both programs, therefore, are engaged in supporting basic research intended to enable curators, conservators, and other professionals to devote intensive study to the objects in their care, and to make their knowledge and professional expertise available to others in new as well as in more traditional ways.
Scholarly Communications & Information Technology: Scholarly communications covers a broad range of activities, including the discovery, collection, organization, evaluation, interpretation, and preservation of primary and other sources of information, and the publication and dissemination of scholarly research. Information technology includes the design, development, implementation, and support of computer-based systems for converting, storing, protecting, processing, retrieving, and transmitting information in electronic form. In scholarly communications program has three main objectives: to support libraries and archives in their efforts to preserve and provide access to materials of broad cultural and scholarly significance; to assist scholars in the development of specialized resources that promise to open or advance fields of study in the humanities and humanistic social sciences; and to strengthen the publication of humanistic scholarship and its dissemination to the widest possible audience.
Performing Arts: This program provides multi-year grants on an invitation-only basis to a small number of leading orchestras, theater companies, opera companies, modern dance companies, and presenters based in the United States. Although the Foundation does not confine its support to large organizations with national visibility, it does seek to support institutions that contribute to the development and preservation of their art form, provide creative leadership in solving problems or addressing issues unique to the field, and which present the highest level of institutional performance. Grants are awarded on the basis of artistic merit and leadership in the field, and concentrate on achieving long-term results. Special consideration is also given to programs supporting generative artists—US composers, playwrights, choreographers, and artist-led theatrical ensembles. In conjunction with regular program grants, the Foundation also makes a limited number of grants to research and service organizations that are doing work closely related to program goals, particularly in the area of professional development.
Application Instructions: Grant inquiries should be made, by writing or email, to the appropriate program officer and program area. LOI guidelines available online.
