• Individuals can apply for grants up to $1,000. No matching funds are required. Funds can be used for any fees related to gathering and completing your workshop (i.e. space rental, paying facilitators, buying materials, serving food and beverages, producing flyers or handouts, etc.)
• Accessibility Fund: Applicants also can choose to request an additional stipend of up to $100 for services such as American Sign Language interpretation or captioning to help make events more accessible to everyone.
• Due to the ongoing pandemic, micro-grant activities can take place virtually. However, you must ensure attendees have the necessary materials and that prompt responses are uploaded to the Envisioning Justice RE:ACTION site with the consent of the creators.
• The individual must gather at least 6 people — in person or virtually (please consult local or CDC guidelines regarding safety) — to complete the same prompt from the Activation Kit. The grantee partner is responsible for uploading results to the site upon completion with the consent of all participants.
• Social media posting is strongly encouraged but not required. Illinois Humanities will provide supplemental social media assets to all micro-grant recipients.
• Micro-grant recipients are encouraged to document workshops beyond the participant materials from the prompt workshops. Photos are highly appreciated but not required.

• Grants will be awarded to individuals anywhere in Illinois. In order to continue strengthening partnerships developed through Envisioning Justice programming, individuals from the following areas are particularly encouraged to apply: East St. Louis, Decatur, Carbondale, Galesburg, Urbana-Champaign, and the Bloomington-Normal Metro Area. However, grants will not be limited to these communities. All individuals across the state are encouraged to apply.
• Applicants for this category include, but are not limited to: artists, humanists, educators, community organizers, policy makers, journalists, and community advocates.
• All selected grantees will be asked to report to Illinois Humanities on grant-funded activities; provide text, photos, audio, and/or video reporting; let Illinois Humanities know of grant-funded events at least a week in advance; be willing to participate in a survey during the grant period; and to work with Illinois Humanities on evaluation, if requested.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. Central on May 20, 2022.

Preview application as a PDF. This PDF is for preview purposes only, please apply using the application link below.

Apply HERE.

• Organizations can apply for grants up to $1,000. No matching funds are required. Funds can be used for any fees related to gathering and completing your workshop (i.e. space rental, paying facilitators, buying materials, providing food and beverages, producing flyers and handouts, etc.)
• Accessibility Fund: Applicants also can choose to request an additional stipend of up to $100 for services such as American Sign Language interpretation or captioning to help make events more accessible to everyone.
• Due to the ongoing pandemic, microgrant activities can take place virtually. However, you must ensure attendees have the necessary materials and that prompt responses are uploaded to the Envisioning Justice RE:ACTION site with the consent of the creators.
• The organization must gather at least 6 people — in person or virtually — to complete the same prompt from the Activation Kit. The grantee partner is responsible for uploading results to the site upon completion with the consent of all participants.
• Social media posting is strongly encouraged but not required. Illinois Humanities will provide supplemental social media assets to all micro-grant recipients.
• Micro-grant recipients are encouraged to document workshops beyond the participant materials from the prompt workshops. Photos are highly appreciated but not required.

• Grants will be awarded to organizations anywhere in Illinois. In order to continue strengthening partnerships developed through Envisioning Justice programming, organizations from the following areas are particularly encouraged to apply: East St. Louis, Decatur, Carbondale, Galesburg, Urbana-Champaign, and the Bloomington-Normal Metro Area. However, grants will not be limited to these communities. Organizations from across the state are encouraged to apply.
• Applicants for this category include, but are not limited to: humanities, arts, and cultural organizations, educators, community-based organizations, social-service agencies, support-service providers who work with currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, and youth media groups.
• All selected grantees will be asked to report to Illinois Humanities on grant-funded activities; provide text, photos, audio, and/or video reporting; let Illinois Humanities know of grant-funded events at least a week in advance; be willing to participate in a survey during the grant period; and to work with Illinois Humanities on evaluation, if requested.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. Central on May 20, 2022.

Preview application as a PDF. This PDF is for preview purposes only, please apply using the application link below.

Apply HERE.

With more than a dozen prompts to choose from, the Activation Kit is an adaptable tool designed to be used by individuals, in groups, in classrooms, with family and friends — wherever people come together and embrace learning by doing.

Prompts are individual and group activities that ask you to build upon your own knowledge and experience and show us how you envision justice. Each prompt includes step-by-step instructions encouraging you to engage with the works featured in the Envisioning Justice exhibition and further contend with the questions and themes within.

Step 1: Browse the prompts on the Activation Kit landing page. Using the filters above the prompts, explore the activities on the website and find one that fits your interests and skills.
Step 2: Click the prompt you’d like to work on and follow the instructions on that prompt’s page. Each prompt leads to a final product, such as a drawing or a piece of writing, that can be submitted back to the RE:ACTION site.
Step 3: Share your finished work with us using the submission form at the bottom of the prompt page. Work generated for RE:ACTION and shared through the submission form can be posted on the website and shared out with others as part of a growing archive.

Simply apply using Foundant. Select the Envisioning Justice grant category you are interested in applying for: individual or organization. You will be asked to describe who you are, what you plan to do, and how you plan to carry it out. If you’d like feedback in advance, we encourage you to contact us with questions or ideas no later than 2 weeks before the stated grant deadline. We plan to notify applicants of funding decisions by Wednesday, June 15, 2022.

Individuals and non-profit/tax-exempt organizations who are interested in using prompts from the Activation Kit to facilitate group conversation about mass incarceration and/or various topics that bring forth possibilities for a more just society. Applicants must be prepared to lead the workshop, document the gathering, upload participant responses to site, and then complete a brief report on the experience. For-profit entities are not eligible for these grants.

Grant opportunities are available for applicants in Illinois. Illinois Humanities is committed to equity in how funds are dispersed across the state, and geographic diversity will be a priority in our selection process.

Yes, this is a one-time micro-grants program meant to enhance the launch of the Envisioning Justice RE:ACTION and to get as many Illinoisans involved in the conversation as possible.

No, you can only submit one application. However, if you change your general idea or which prompt you’d like to use for your workshop after you’ve submitted your application, please reach out to Tyreece Williams at tyreece.williams@ilhumanities.org no later than 5 days before the deadline.

Due to the smaller size of this grant opportunity, recipients will be chosen by Illinois Humanities staff.

For simplicity, we ask micro-grant recipients to lead a workshop centering on the same prompt. Depending on the number of requests for a particular prompt, we might suggest you choose another of interest.

Micro-grant recipients are required to submit at least half of the participant responses using the online submission form on the RE:ACTION site. All submissions can be submitted by the micro-grant recipient or by the individual participants.

Microgrant recipients are required to submit a short final survey about their experience. In addition, we encourage social media posts and may solicit your contribution to an Illinois Humanities blog post. Illinois Humanities will provide additional guidance for social media posts along with your grant agreement.

Yes, we encourage all visitors of the site to complete one or more of the prompts on the site by themselves or in community with others. We also invite all who respond to a prompt to submit their responses to the site using the online submission form. This microgrant opportunity, however, is meant for those who would like to receive funding to facilitate a workshop and/or would like to partner with Illinois Humanities more directly.

The humanities are the examination of what it means to be human through the interpretation and discussion of all forms of thought, interest and expression. While we value traditional humanities disciplines, such as art history, literature, languages, law, history, and philosophy, our emphasis is on the public humanities, which means that we look at the humanities as more than an academic discipline.

For us, the public humanities are a mode of inquiry and conversation that aims to engage, support, or challenge the ideals, beliefs, tensions, and prejudices of the communities in which we live. We believe that important thought can happen outside of the academy – in neighborhood institutions, schools, churches, and at kitchen tables across the country. We are especially interested in instances of the public humanities that promote civic engagement – in raising critical issues facing everyday people and conducted with the hope of increasing their desire for staying engaged. Rather than being defined by rigid disciplinary boundaries, it is the humanistic lens, which emphasizes curiosity, questioning, and dialogue, that matters most to us.