Internal Funding Sources

External Funding Sources

Academic Council on the United Nations System
American Council of Learned Societies
American Political Science Association
Council for International Exchange of Scholars
Library of Congress
McNeil Center for Early American Studies
National Science Foundation, Overview of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
Peace Development Fund
RAND Institute
U.S. Department of State

Specific Programs

• Bradley Foundation Grants Program
• Bremer Foundation Grants Program
• Century Grants Program
• Compton Foundation-Grants Program
• Robert H. Michel Civic Education Grants
• Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship in Education Policy
• Spencer Foundation Grants Program
• Student Internships
• Travel Grants-in-Aid
• Truman Library Institute- Research Grants
• Women's International Science Collaboration (WISC) Program

Sponsor: Bradley (Lynde and Harry) Foundation
Deadline(s): March 1, July 1, September 1 and December 1, annually

Objectives:
Projects likely to be supported will generally share these assumptions:

• treat free men and women as genuinely self-governing, personally responsible citizens, not as victims or clients
• aim to restore the intellectual and cultural legitimacy of citizenly common sense, the received wisdom of experience, everyday morality, and personal character, refurbishing their roles as reliable guideposts of everyday life
• seek to reinvigorate and re-empower the traditional, local institutions --families, schools, churches, and neighborhoods -- that provide training in and room for the exercise of genuine citizenship, that pass on everyday morality to the next generation, and that cultivate personal character
• encourage decentralization of power and accountability away from centralized, bureaucratic, national institutions back to the states, localities, and revitalized mediating structures where citizenship is more fully realized.

Eligibility:
Eligible applicants are tax-exempt organizations and projects which are not normally financed by public tax funds will be favored. Requests from religious organizations will be considered only when the impact of the project is not primarily denominational.

Sponsor: Bremer (Otto) Foundation
Deadline(s):Open

Objectives:
The sponsor provides support to promote human rights and create opportunities for economic and social justice in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Eligibility:
Eligible applicants are private nonprofit or public tax-exempt organizations located in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, or Wisconsin.

Sponsor:Century Foundation
Deadline: Open

Objectives:
The foundation sponsors and supervises research on significant economic, social, and political issues. sponsor research projects usually are designed to produce analytic, book-length manuscripts containing public policy recommendations. They are aimed at an audience that includes the informed public, the press, policymakers and the academic community. The sponsor commissions individual scholars to carry out its research projects, and the book-length manuscripts that result are edited and then usually placed by the sponsor with commercial publishers or university presses. Please contact the sponsor or visit the above website to gain eligibility information or in regards to any further questions.

Sponsor: Compton Foundation, Inc.
Deadline(s): Feburary 15 and September 15, annually

Objectives:
Other concerns of the Foundation include Equal Educational Opportunity, Community Welfare and Social Justice, and Culture & the Arts. The Foundation is concerned first and foremost with the prevention of war, and the amelioration of world conditions that tend to cause conflict. Primary among these conditions are the increasing pressures and destabilizing effects of excessive population growth, the depletion of the earth's natural resources, the steady deterioration of the world's environment and the tenuous status of human rights. The sponsor focuses most of its grant-making in the areas of Peace and World Order, Population, and the Environment, with special emphasis on projects that explore the interconnections between these three categories.

The Foundation believes that prevention is a more effective strategy than remediation, that research and activism should inform each other, and that both perspectives are needed for productive public debate. In order to demonstrate what can be done to bring about the necessary societal transformations, the Foundation seeks to encourage positive models of change. Grants are made for the following kinds of activities: education of the public; education of policy makers; education of the media; advocacy and public activism; demonstration projects; fellowship support to selected institutions for promising young scholars; scholarly research in selected academic centers of excellence, with special priority given to projects which are interdisciplinary, are policy related, and lead to action.

Eligibility:
The Foundation primarily funds U.S. based organizations. The sponsor actively encourages collaboration between agencies, institutions and/or foundations, and projects that connect theory, research and practice. Applicants must have demonstrated strong leadership and management capability; have a proposed project with a specific focus in an area not presently supported adequately by other sources of funding; have a project that is responsive to the local population, involves local people in the planning and implementation process, and takes into account the cultural and economic impact of the project on the local population; and have a project that requires a relatively modest investment in order to make a significant impact.

Priority is given to projects which have more than local application, are replicable, and are likely to be taken over and managed by a long-term funding source. In all program areas, the Foundation has a special interest in providing support for minorities. The Board will only consider one proposal from each organization per year.

Sponsor: Dirksen (Everett M.) Cong. Leadership Res. Ctr.
Deadline(s): Continuous
Objectives:
The Center serves two primary audiences: scholars who conduct research about Congress and teachers who teach social studies, history, political science, and other subjects which relate to Congress. Accordingly, the Michel Special Projects grants are intended to support work that advances the public understanding of the federal legislature through research and teaching.

Examples of eligible projects include conferences that bring together congressional scholars, the collection or publication of resources useful for research, efforts by teachers to develop creative ways to teach about Congress, and publications, especially those with appeal beyond academia. IMPORTANT: The projects must have as their central focus the U.S. Congress.

As important and worthwhile as they may be, the following would not qualify for a Special Projects Grant: the development of teaching materials for a single classroom or school, field trips for students, efforts to create legislative simulations, service-learning projects, travel to conferences, the costs of professional development courses or workshops, and basic research projects (see the Congressional Research Awards), among others. Applicants may not use grant funds for indirect or overhead expenses.

Sponsor:Spencer Foundation
Deadline:Open

Objectives:
The sponsor's mission is to fund activities, anywhere in the world, which foster new ideas in education and encourage creativity. The sponsor prefers to fund specific initiatives that conform to the mission statement.

Eligibility:
The sponsor funds activities from anywhere in the world.

Sponsor:RAND
Deadline:N/A

Objectives:
The sponsor provides a fellowship to enable outstanding new scholars in education policy to sharpen their analytic skills, learn to communicate research results effectively, and advance their research agendas. The program blends formal and informal training and extensive collaboration with distinguished researchers in a variety of disciplines. Fellows will spend sixty percent of their time on an appropriate sponsor Education project and forty percent of their time on their own research.

Eligibility:
Fellows must have completed a Ph.D. in a relevant discipline such as education, psychology, sociology, economics, statistics, anthropology, or political science within the last five years.

Sponsor:Independent Institute
Deadline:Open

Objectives:
Through participation in seminars and directed research, interns will improve their understanding of public policy issues and, through working with the sponsor's media department, they will see how policy institutes operate in the world of public debate. Under the direction of Independent Institute Fellows, interns conduct policy research on such topics as hight technology and antitrust, environmental policy, crime and security, money and finance, or health and welfare. They will gain valuable experience by writing policy-related newspaper op-eds or magazine articles and by giving radio interviews related to their research, as well as by providing support for other sponsor programs. Those interning in June will also participate in the sponsor's week-long, in-house Summer Seminar in Political Economy.

Eligibility:
Undergraduate college students-preferably those studying economics, law, public policy, political science or related social sciences-are eligible for the summer internship program.

Sponsor: Rockefeller Archive Center
Deadline(s): November 30, annually

Objectives:
The sponsor offers grants to promote and support periods of graduate and postdoctoral research in its archival collections of members of the Rockefeller family and of various philanthropic and educational institutions founded by members of the Rockefeller family. Major subjects at the Center include agriculture, the arts, African-American history, education, international relations and economic development, labor, medicine, philanthropy, politics, population, religion, science, social welfare and the social sciences, and women's history.

Eligibility:
Eligible applicants are usually graduate students or postdoctoral scholars in any discipline engaged in research that requires use of the collections at the Center.

Sponsor: Truman (Harry S.) Library Institute
Deadline(s): April 1 and October 1, 1 annually

Objectives:
The sponsor supports opportunities to conduct research on the career of Harry S. Truman or the Truman Administration and use the archival facilities of the Truman Library. Preference will be given to projects that have application to enduring public policy and foreign policy issues and that have a high probability of being published or publicly disseminated in some other way. The potential contribution of a project to an applicant's development as a scholar will also be considered.

Eligibility:
Eligible applicants are graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and other researchers.

Sponsor:American Association for the Advancement of Science
Deadline: Check website for current deadlines

Objectives:
The program is designed to increase the participation of women in international scientific research. Only fields funded by the National Science Foundation and interdisciplinary research cutting across these fields are eligible, including archaeology, anthropology, astronomy, biochemistry, biophysics and genetics, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, economics, engineering, environmental sciences, geography, history and philosophy of science, linguistics, mathematics, physics, political science, non-clinically oriented psychology, science and technology policy, science education, and sociology.

Eligibility:
Men and women scientists who have their Ph.D.s or equivalent research experience are eligible to apply. They must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. Applications from male co-PIs must be accompanied by an application from a female co-PI as part of a US research team, except as noted below for the Americas. Male and female graduate students (Ph.D. candidates) are also eligible to apply, if they will be conducting research in an established Ph.D. program in the US. Male graduate students still need a female co-PI.

Government employees can only apply if they also are affiliated with another institution eligible to receive NSF grants. Scientists who have received their doctoral degrees within the past six years will receive special consideration, as will scientists applying to work with colleagues in less frequently represented countries or regions. Where feasible, applications are encouraged with foreign partners who are women and/or early in their professional careers (within six years of receiving their Ph.D.).