Grant Alert & Special Sale!

Sara's Birthday Sale announcement: For this week only, if you purchase Fifty Funders for South Florida Youth Programs, I will send you free Simply: Grant Writing! See the right side panel for ordering information.

LITERACY
http://www.neabigread.org/guidelines.php <http://www.neabigread.org/guidelines.php>
The Big Read
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The initiative brings together partners across the United States to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. The Big Read is accepting applications from nonprofit organizations to conduct month-long, community-wide reads between September 2009 and June 2010. Organizations selected to participate in the Big Read will each receive a grant ranging from $2,500 to $20,000, financial support to attend an orientation meeting, educational and promotional materials, an Organizer's Guide for developing and managing Big Read activities, inclusion of the organization and activities on the Big Read Web site, and the prestige of participating in a highly visible national initiative. Approximately four hundred organizations of varying sizes across the country will be selected for this cycle. Applicant organizations must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, a division of state, local, or tribal government, or a tax-exempt public library. Eligible applicants include such organizations as literary centers, libraries, museums, colleges and universities, art centers, historical societies, arts councils, tribal governments, humanities councils, literary festivals, and arts organizations. Applicant organizations must partner with a library (if the applicant organization itself is not a library), and must select one of the twenty-seven available book titles or one of the three available poetry books. Application deadline: February 3, 2009.



YOUTH
http://www.emcf.org/how/index.htm
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation helps young people, ages 9 to 24, from low-income backgrounds become independent, productive adults in three ways: improving educational skills and academic achievement; preparing for the world of work and making the transition to employment and economic self-sufficiency; and avoiding high-risk behaviors such as drug abuse, violence, and teen pregnancy. Rather than design initiatives or programs itself, the Foundation works to develop and expand a pool of organizations that can serve thousands more youth each year with programs that produce these outcomes. It focuses solely on high-performing organizations and believes that making significant, long-term, financial investments in them (coupled with extra-financial supports) is an efficient and effective way to meet the urgent needs of low-income youth. The Foundation holds itself accountable for significantly increasing the number of low-income young people benefiting from proven services, and for helping to develop stronger, sustainable organizations that serve low-income youth on a significant scale. Recognizing that young people are most at risk when they are not in school or at home, the Foundation focuses primarily on organizations that deliver services and programming outside school hours. Eligible applicants include: stand-alone 501(c)(3) organization with a history of service to young people. Although the foundation is not accepting proposals from individual organizations, it does invite organizations to complete its Youth Organizations Survey. Based on an organization's responses, the foundation will determine whether it should take a closer look at the organization's programs, leadership, and overall operations.