Whiting Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Whiting Foundation supports grants for ambitious creative fiction projects in a wide variety of subject areas. These grants are awarded to emerging writers so they can fully devote themselves to their literary work. It also supports efforts to engage the public with humanities research and to preserve and disseminate cultural heritage internationally.
IP TAKE: Grantseekers cannot apply directly for the writing grants, but knowing someone influential in the industry may provide an opportunity. These are great awards for research-heavy, multi-year book projects. The application window for Whiting’s non-writing awards opens and closes quickly, so grantseekers will want to keep an eye on the foundation’s website. Approachable, contact the foundation with general questions.
PROFILE: Based in Brooklyn, New York, the Whiting Foundation was created by Flora Ettlinger Whiting, a supporter of the arts and culture, upon her death in 1971. The foundation’s current mission is to provide “targeted support for writers, scholars, and the stewards of humanity’s shared cultural heritage.” This funder’s ongoing programs include the Whiting Award, Nonfiction Grants and Magazine Prizes. Its scholars program, which changes its theme every few years, currently supports fellowships and grants for public engagement in the
Grants for Writing and Journalism
The Whiting Foundation makes grants for writers through its Whiting Award, Creative Nonfiction Grant and Magazine Prize programs.
The Whiting Award is given to ten emerging writers each year and consists of a $50,000 prize. Awards have gone to writers working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama and aim to recognize “early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come.” The foundation does not accept applications for these awards.
The foundation’s Creative Nonfiction Grant program supports writers who working on “intensely researched nonfiction books, written with an artful sensitivity to complexity and nuance.” Grants are awarded in the amount of $40,000 to as many as ten writers each year with the goal of providing support for research and writing. The foundation accepts applications for this program with a due date in late April, but grantseeker must provide evidence of a project in progress that is “under contract with a publisher in Canada, the UK, or the US.” Additional guidelines are available at the programs webpage, linked above, and the foundation encourages applications from writers of color who “often face additional structural hurdles to securing institutional resources to support such projects.”
Whiting’s Magazine Prize offers significant support to “anizations that actively nurture the writers who tell us, through their art, what is important.” Recent prizes have gone to small- to medium-sized literary journals with budgets of under $500,000. The prize consists of “an outright gift,” followed by smaller matching grants and capacity building support in subsequent years. Recent recipients of the Magazine Prize include San Francisco’s ZYZZYVA, the Bennington Review and the Brooklyn-based American Chordata.
Grants for Arts and Culture and Humanities Research
The Whiting Foundation, through its Scholars program, currently awards fellowships and seed grants for programs and projects that facilitate public engagement in the humanities. Fellowships recognize and support faculty in humanities disciplines who “embrace public engagement as part of the scholarly vocation.” In a recent year, six fellowships were awarded in amounts of $50,000 each. Additionally, the public engagement focus area awards seed grants in amounts of up to $10,000 to humanities faculty whose “public facing humanities projects” are in the planning or pilot stages of development. This program will be “on hiatus” for the 2023-2024 grantmaking cycle; grantseekers should check the program page periodically for updates about new opportunities.
This funder also makes a select few grants each year for the preservation of Cultural Heritage around the world. Grants stemming from this program have prioritized projects that involve “local stewards” in areas of the world where there is a dearth of funding for preservation projects. Past grantees include Cultural Emergency Response, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Qatar National Library and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library for its work support of manuscript preservation in Syria. The foundation does not run an open application program for this program.
Important Grant Details
Most of Whiting’s grants are awarded in specific amounts that are set by each program. Information about past grantees is available at each program page. This funder accepts applications for its creative nonfiction grants, but grantseekers may wish to keep tabs on other program pages for updates on new grantmaking opportunities. General inquiries can be submitted to the foundation’s staff via email.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS: