Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Grants

Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
Amount: Up to US $25,000
Last Updated: December 06, 2025

Summary

The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation supports projects in the humanities, performing arts, and research libraries, emphasizing excellence in scholarship and creativity. Eligible organizations include U.S. not-for-profits and institutions that enhance the cultural heritage through historical studies, literature, and the arts. The Foundation favors projects that foster collaboration across disciplines, particularly those benefiting European and American history and letters. With a focus on excellence, it aims to broaden access to humanities resources and experiences.

Overview

The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation promotes the advancement and perpetuation of humanistic inquiry and artistic creativity by encouraging excellence in scholarship and in the performing arts, and by supporting research libraries and other institutions which transmit our cultural heritage. The programs of the Foundation reflect the interests and patronage of its founders, Gladys Krieble Delmas and Jean Paul Delmas. Humanities Program The Foundation intends to further the humanities along a broad front, supporting projects which address the concerns of the historical studia humanitatis: a humanistic education rooted in the great traditions of the past; the formation of human beings according to cultural, moral, and aesthetic ideals derived from that past; and the ongoing debate over how these ideals may best be conceived and realized. Programs in the following areas are eligible: history; archaeology; literature; languages, both classical and modern; philosophy; ethics; comparative religion; the history, criticism, and theory of the arts; and those aspects of the social sciences which share the content and methods of humanistic disciplines. The Foundation welcomes projects that cross the boundaries between humanistic disciplines and explore the connection between the humanities and other areas of scholarship. Programs of institutions in Venice relating to the humanities are eligible in this category. The geographical concentration is primarily but not exclusively directed toward European and American history and letters, broadly defined. The Humanities Program is primarily directed to institutions of higher education and humanistic enterprises such as learned societies, museums, and major editorial projects. The program may also consider, on a selective basis, projects that increase the exposure of those outside these institutions to the humanistic experience or that strengthen preparation for the humanistic disciplines. The prime criterion remains that of Gladys and Jean Delmas: a commitment to excellence, whether proven or promised. Performing Arts Program Each year, the Foundation supports a limited number of not-for-profit performing arts institutions based in New York City that provide performances in music, dance and theatre. Only established performing or producing entities with a history of appearing at preeminent venues and such venues themselves are eligible. Applicants must be publicly supported organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; the Foundation does not make grants to fiscal agents. Special initiatives of other institutions, start-up projects, emerging organizations, development campaigns, and building projects are ineligible. Proposals for pre-professional programs and opera are only accepted from past grantees. The Foundation receives many more requests for support than it could ever fund, and for that reason most first-time grant applications are not successful. Subject to the above requirements, the program supports: Dance presenters who make ballet and modern dance available to the public and otherwise provide support to the dance field, as well as a limited number of ballet and modern dance companies.Theatre companies and presenters that have demonstrated a commitment to include the classics in their regular offerings.Music groups and concert presenters committed to making early music or contemporary repertory available to New York City audiences. Research Libraries Program The Research Libraries Program concentrates primarily in those areas of its founders’ interests and aims to be fully complementary to the Foundation’s other program areas (i.e., humanities scholarship, performing arts, and Venetian history and culture). The overall objective of the Research Libraries Program is to improve the ability of research libraries to serve the needs of scholarship in the humanities and the performing arts, and to help make their resources more widely accessible to scholars and the general public. Wherever possible, grants to libraries seek to promote cooperative cataloging projects, with an emphasis on access to archival, manuscript, and other unique sources; some elements of interpretation and exhibition; scholarly library publications; bibliographical and publishing projects of interest to research libraries; and collection-level preservation/conservation work and research. Small-scale digitizing is eligible for support when the process is part of a clearly defined and timely scholarly project that incorporates recognized standards for metadata production, for preservation, and for distribution. The Foundation does not support massive digitizing projects of a general nature.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. The Foundation supports:U.S. not-for-profit organizations with 501(c)(3) statusOrganizations utilizing a U.S. fiscal sponsor with 501(c)(3) statusNot-for-profit organizations, including those outside of the U.S., with necessary documentation.Very rarely does the Foundation support endowment campaigns, and then only where the objectives are clearly focused and very closely aligned to Foundation purposes.The geographical concentration is primarily but not exclusively directed toward European and American history and letters, broadly defined.In general, awards are made for single-year, and not multi-year, projects.Humanities Program:The Humanities Program is primarily directed to institutions of higher education and humanistic enterprises such as learned societies, museums, and major editorial projects. The program may also consider, on a selective basis, projects that increase the exposure of those outside these institutions to the humanistic experience or that strengthen preparation for the humanistic disciplines in secondary education.  The prime criterion remains that of Gladys and Jean Delmas: a commitment to excellence, whether proven or promised.Performing Arts Program:The Foundation only supports not-for-profit performing arts organizations in NYC in the fields of music, dance and theatre. Research Libraries Program: Technological developments that support humanities research and access to humanities resources are eligible. A limited number of modest grants will also be available for projects related to the history of the book, book culture, printing history, and related programs. Conferences designed to address these issues in collaborative ways and programs formulated to enhance or leverage similar activity by other institutions, consortia, or funding agencies will also be considered.

Ineligibility

Research Libraries program:  The Foundation does not support massive digitizing projects of a general nature.The Foundation does not support:capital campaigns and building projectsoverhead and indirect costs.