Project Grants

Illinois Humanities Project Grants support individuals and nonprofit organizations pursuing innovative programming in the digital humanities, for audience engagement, or audience growth and diversification. These project-based grants fund initiatives from oral history projects to filmmaking that inspire risk-taking in the public humanities, paving the way for others to follow. Partnering with individuals and organizations in this work helps grow audiences for the humanities in new and engaging ways. The grants support projects that engage Illinois communities in public humanities programming, including initiatives that engage the public in conversation with collections of local and regional history, community-centered journalism, storytelling and community conversations, place-based community-building efforts, humanities education workshops, local filmmaking efforts and documentaries, and digital or physical archives and collections. Funded activities engage communities in humanities content that is local and relevant, leverage the humanities to address timely issues, support the current and next generation through the creation and stewardship of spaces to reflect on what it means to be human, impact communities that the applicant defines as underserved, and uplift telling stories of forgotten or under-told history and themes.