Grants and Funding for Writers During COVID-19

Financial support for writers, bloggers, and other creators

I was recently fortunate enough to be awarded one of the Substack Independent Writer Grants:

However, I realize how lucky I was to even be in a position to apply to this grant. I heard about the grant through a Substack post I stumbled upon and could have easily missed.

I’m sure many people are unaware of any of the financial resources designed to help writers, bloggers, and other content creators, so I decided to put together a list.

I hope you find these resources useful, and I encourage you to apply to these!

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1. Substack Fellowship

Substack is offering a fellowship (applications available some time in May) to help support writers through “external mentorship, support, and a stipend”:

In the short term, we want to do more to support writers right now. Next month, we’re launching a second fellowship program that will provide writers with external mentorship, support, and a stipend in order to establish long-term success with the subscription publishing model. We’ll host the program digitally, and, starting next month, applications will be open to any writer on Substack. Stay tuned for more information. 

Source: Substack Announcement

While the details at this point are limited, Substack has already demonstrated its commitment to the writing community by offering a (more limited version) of the fellowship program before and through their recent Independent Writer Grants.

Even though the application is not available yet, I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of this tremendous opportunity, as very few similar grants exist for writers or bloggers.

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2. Artist Relief Project

The Artist Relief Project is an initiative run by Artly World Nonprofit. The fund is open to any artist (writers included) in any discipline who has been negatively affected by cancellations and closures.

The only requirements are (1) you demonstrate you’re an artist by sharing your resume and website, where applicable, and (2) you share this fundraiser with your own networks and provide a screenshot of that activity.

They will distribute stipends and support every other week on an ongoing, first-come, first-serve basis as long as funding continues. The first round of payouts is anticipated to be distributed around April 23rd, and the number of recipients depends on how much funding is available each distribution cycle.

Each distribution cycle, they will announce how much funding has been released and send out a courtesy email to recipients. Funds will be transferred to recipients’ Paypal accounts or mailed via paper check.

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3. Fund for Investigative Journalism’s Rolling Grant

FIJ’s board of directors is looking for stories on the coronavirus that break new ground and expose wrongdoing—such as corruption, malfeasance, or abuse of power—in the public and private sectors.

FIJ encourages proposals written for ethnic media as well as those submitted by journalists of color and involving the impact of the coronavirus in U.S. ethnic communities.

Grants average $5,000 but can be as high as $10,000. They cover out-of-pocket expenses such as travel, document collection, and equipment rental. FIJ also considers requests for small stipends.

FIJ will review proposals as they are submitted. Grant decisions can be expected within two weeks of submission of application

It is FIJ policy to pay the first half of approved grants to successful applicants upon approval, with the second half paid on publication of a finished project in accordance with the original proposal.

All application documents must be written in English and budgets expressed in U.S. Dollars.

Budget guidelines: Your estimated budget must itemize expenses such as travel, document fees, equipment rentals, and stipends. Be specific. Vague line items may be denied. Identify other sources of funding.

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4. The Artist’s Fellowship

This is a charitable foundation that assists professional visual artists and their families. Due to the pandemic, all their resources have been directed toward helping applicants who have been hit with an immediate medical emergency. The application is extensive, but they award an average of $2,500 or more depending on the needs of the applicant.

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5. Arts Writers Grant Program

The Arts Writers Grant Program was founded in 2006 to recognize the precarious situation of arts writers, and their indispensable contribution to a vital artistic culture. As the COVID-19 outbreak further threatens the cultural and arts writing landscape, the Arts Writers Grant Program is grateful for the Andy Warhol Foundation’s continued support.

The Arts Writers grant supports both emerging and established writers who are writing about contemporary visual art. Ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 in three categories—articles, books, and short-form writing—these grants support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences, from short reviews for magazines and newspapers to in-depth scholarly studies. We also support art writing that engages criticism through interdisciplinary methods or experiments with literary styles. As long as a writer meets the eligibility and publishing requirements, they can apply.

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6. The Awesome Foundation

The Awesome Foundation is a global community advancing the interest of awesome in the universe, $1000 at a time.

Each fully autonomous chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants, usually given out monthly. These micro-grants, $1000 or the local equivalent, come out of pockets of the chapter's "trustees" and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome projects.

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7. Arts Leaders of Color Emergency Fund

In March 2020, Arts Administrators of Color set up an Arts Leaders of Color Emergency Fund, which supports BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists & arts administrators impacted by COVID-19 through $200 microgrants. 

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I hope that you found this list of resources for writers useful! If you know of any other grants or programs like these, that are not listed above, please reply in the comments section of the article.

Until next time!

Casey

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