By investing in the stories, ideas, and community-building efforts of Alaskans across the state, the Forum’s Strengthening Communities Grants Program seeks to spark connection and deepen our understanding of others, ourselves, and our communities.
Each year, the Forum awards project grants to nonprofit organizations and state, local, and federally recognized tribal governments across the state. We also provide stipends to individuals looking to host community conversations through our Kindling Conversation program.
Stories Grants (opens late summer, annually)
Grants of $10,000 to organizations for projects working to build a more inclusive narrative of Alaska’s past and present by amplifying stories that have been underrecognized or excluded from the public discourse. Closed for applications. Next cycle will open in Summer 2025.
Dialogues Grants (opens spring, annually)
Grants of $3,000 to organizations to design and facilitate public programming that brings people together to learn from one another and inspire deeper understanding of topics that are important to Alaskans. Closed for applications. Next cycle will open in Spring 2025.
Kindling Conversation Stipends (rolling year-round)
Noncompetitive stipends of $250 for individuals or organizations interested in hosting short, thoughtful community conversations that connect people across difference and foster inclusive conversational spaces throughout the state. Open for applications on a rolling basis.
STORIES GRANT PROJECTS
How We Love: Untold Stories of Lesbian Friendship, Family, and Activism in Alaska (Out North), Statewide
The contributions of lesbians working to fight violence against women in Alaska have remained largely excluded from public discourse, and mainstream narratives often still portray lesbians as anti-family. How We Love, a project of Out North in collaboration with Cecilia Karoly-Lister and Arciniega Street Productions seeks to gather and share the untold stories and lived experiences of lesbian friendship, family, and activism in 1980s Alaska.
Culture Rich Conversations (Black Awareness Association of Juneau / KTOO), Juneau
Grant funding supports the production of 16 episodes of Culture Rich Conversations, a radio program and podcast produced by Juneau’s Black Awareness Association in collaboration with KTOO Public Media. The show shares the lived experiences of being Black in Alaska with the aim of building cross-cultural understanding and healing.
Stories of Subsistence (Chugach Regional Resources Commission), Chugach Region
The Stories of Subsistence project will elevate stories of subsistence resources and practices in the Chugach Region and preserve subsistence use knowledge through the creation of short video productions based on interviews with Tribal Members from the region. This project will focus on efforts to promote subsistence rights, food security, and Tribal sovereignty by uplifting Tribal perspectives and documenting Traditional Ecological Knowledge and will provide the necessary equipment and expertise to support future storytelling.
Reconnecting Through Rhythm (Ketchikan Wellness Coalition), Ketchikan
Reconnecting Through Rhythm tells the story of Alma Manabat Parker, a Filipina in Ketchikan, Alaska, as she embarks on a journey to reconnect with her Filipino heritage through the power of traditional Filipino dance. By learning and teaching traditional dance, Alma hopes to bridge the gap between her Filipino roots and her Alaskan life.
Fighting For Our Lives: Stories from Shaktoolik (Native Village of Shaktoolik), Shaktoolik
The Native Village of Shaktoolik is among the most climate-vulnerable communities in Alaska. Through Fighting For Our Lives, Shaktoolik will undertake a collaborative filmmaking project to tell the story of their efforts to protect the village's future and the challenges they encounter along the way.
How They Lived: Legacies of Love of MMIP in Alaska (Data for Indigenous Justice), Statewide
The DIJ team will curate 'How They Lived, A Legacy of Love" story series that uplifts the lives and loving memories of missing, murdered Indigenous peoples in Alaska. This important project ensures a healing-centered approach to understanding the crisis of MMIR by directly uplifting families' voices.
Alaska’s Hidden Roots: Uncovering New Stories (Keys to Life), Anchorage
Alaska’s Hidden Roots: Uncovering New Stories will open a window to underrecognized stories of Anchorage’s newest immigrants through a short documentary film. Hidden Roots explores the personal histories, family, and cultural background of Sudanese and Afghanistan youth along with their families.
Kokhanok Elder Stories Podcast (Kokhanok Village Council), Kokhanok
The Kokhanok Elder Stories Podcast is a project driven by the heartfelt desire of our tribal elders to share their stories. Through the podcast, we will delve into topics such as traditional practices, subsistence living, historical events, language preservation, and the challenges faced by our community – the podcast will ensure that future generations have access to this wealth of knowledge, promoting cultural pride and understanding.
DIALOGUES GRANT PROJECTS
Fairbanks Housing Dialogue (Cold Climate Housing Research Center), Fairbanks
The Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) will host a day-long event called the Interior Housing Forum to address critical housing issues, including climate resiliency, aging in place, sustainable innovation, healthy housing and more. The forum will take place in Fairbanks, Alaska, bringing together tribal leaders, housing developers, researchers, policymakers, non-profits, and health and environmental professionals.
Alaska Native Language Access Conversation (Alaska Public Interest Research Group), Anchorage/Statewide
There is a need across the state for Alaskans to talk about our languages, acknowledge our history, and to heal and grow while deepening our understanding of and connection to what languages mean to our people. AKPIRG will be holding a community conversation surrounding Alaska Native languages and language access, in order to grow community connections, celebrate our diverse communities, and honor the first peoples of these lands.
Voices of our Neighbors (Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness), Anchorage
The Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness will host a facilitated dialogue with people experiencing homelessness or who have recently been homeless. An open-ended conversation will help ACEH build a base of knowledge for a homelessness response system led by those with lived experience.
Prioritizing Community Training Opportunities (Latinx’i Coalition, a community affiliate of Native Movement), Yakutat
The Latínx'i Coalition aims to empower our communities through truth, healing, and transformation by preparing the next generation of leaders to transform our social and economic systems, centering on Indigenous knowledge and values. Currently serving Yakutat, this project will facilitate community-led dialogues to collectively identify the top priority training opportunities that will help us achieve our vision.
The Future of Higher Education on the Historic Sheldon Jackson Campus (Outer Coast), Sitka
Outer Coast is an institution of higher education based on the Sitka Fine Arts Camp / historic Sheldon Jackson Campus in Sitka. As we start our own undergraduate program, we plan to organize a community-wide town hall that will inform the future of higher education on the historic SJ campus.
The Forum’s Grants team is available to answer questions and provide guidance on applicant eligibility, project ideas, budget questions, and technical difficulties submitting an application. All feedback or suggestions are based on our past experience working with grantees and our selection committee, and do not guarantee funding. Note, Forum staff do not make funding decisions; our Board of Directors has final approval.
Shoshi Bieler, Director of Stories and Grants Programs
sbieler(at)akhf(dot)org
907-770-8406
In 2023, we introduced the Strengthening Communities Grants program guided by the following goals:
Deepening our grant program’s alignment with the Forum’s mission. Through each of the three funding opportunities in our Strengthening Communities Grants, we are committed to investing in projects across the state that “connect Alaskans through stories, ideas, and experiences that inspire understanding and strengthen communities.” We see this as not only a way to live our mission through our grantmaking, but also to support the many community-building projects led by organizations and individuals across the state.
Creating consistency and predictability in our grantmaking. Like for many other nonprofits, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a deep impact on our programming. Specifically for our grantmaking program, COVID-19 meant that our regular grantmaking has been more or less on pause for the past three years. This year, in 2023, we are excited to be relaunching an annual grant cycle. Not only does this mean that applicants across the state will be able to know what to expect of our funding opportunities and timelines, but it also means that we will be able to gather meaningful feedback to continue to improve our grantmaking year-to-year. To that end, if there are comments or suggestions you would like to share about what is working and what could continue to be improved, we welcome you to fill out the anonymous survey linked in the section below.
Re-assessing all aspects of our grantmaking through an equity, accessibility, and trust-based lens. Alongside an organization-wide effort to uplift diversity, equity and inclusion in our programming, we are working to re-assess all aspects of our grantmaking through an equity, accessibility, and trust-based lens. This includes everything from our application process and requirements, to our selection process, to monitoring and reporting requirements. Some changes we have already made include: removing our match requirement; removing the requirement for supplemental application materials such as detailed budget narratives and letters of support; and shifting the format of progress reports from written reports with each fund disbursement request to short phone/virtual check-ins a few times over the course of the grant period.
This work is ongoing and always in process. As we work toward more equitable grantmaking practices, we welcome feedback. If there are comments or suggestions you would like to share about what is working and what could continue to be improved, we welcome you to fill out this anonymous survey.
The Alaska Humanities Forum is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that designs and facilitates experiences to bridge distance and difference – programming that shares and preserves the stories of people and places across our vast state, and explores what it means to be Alaskan.
November 1, 2024 • Shoshi Bieler
October 25, 2024 • Amanda Dale
October 22, 2024 • Polly Carr
