The application period for the 2022 LingComm Grants competition has ended.
You can read more about the grants below, and see the projects selected for funding on the Grantees page.
2022 LingComm Grants
Do you have an idea for a linguistics communication project that could use a bit of money and support to help get off the ground? Are you working on a linguistics communication project that could use a bit of a boost to reach the next level? Apply for a LingComm Grant!
The 2022 LingComm Grants consist of ten $100 (USD) LingComm Startup Grants and four $500 (USD) LingComm Project Grants to support linguistics communication projects that bring linguistics to new audiences in engaging ways. The grants also include a group mentoring meeting with Gretchen and Lauren to refine your idea, and promotion of your project to our lingthusiastic audience.
The grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. (Want to contribute to additional LingComm Grants existing? See below.)
Dates
Applications and funding close: 31 March 2022, midnight (i.e. as long as it is still March anywhere in the world). Any contributions to LingComm Grants made before this date will count towards more grants existing in 2022; after this date contributions will count towards future years.
Winners announced: By the end of April 2022.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are you looking for in a LingComm grant application?
We’re looking for projects that bring linguistics to new audiences in engaging ways.
We’re open to any area of linguistics, but we encourage projects to pick a specific topic, theme, and/or audience rather than a general “what is linguistics” aimed at everyone. It may help to do some searches and look through the Resources page to see what already exists — what makes your project different?
We’re also looking for projects that are specific enough in scope that $100 or $500 can make a significant difference and that they can reasonably be created by the end of 2022, even around other work and/or school commitments that you presumably have. (This is about 8 months from when we announce the winner.)
For example, if you want to make a multimedia project, don’t promise weekly episodes indefinitely. Rather, pick a smaller, defined number of episodes. If your narrowly-defined project is going really well, you always have the option of continuing to do it after the grant period, but we’re looking for concrete, realistic outcomes that can stand alone even if you get busy and Phase 2 doesn’t happen. You may wish to create for yourself some calculations of how many hours you think each part might take. You might also want to double that number of hours (we tell you this from hard-learned experience!).
Why do you ask about new audiences?
We want communication about linguistics to reach as many people as possible, and thinking critically and creatively about projects to cater to a wide range of people makes that happen. We strongly encourage people from backgrounds that have been underrepresented in linguistics communication to apply, perhaps reaching new audiences that you yourself are a part of.
We also encourage you to use this section to talk about how your project will be accessible, such as with transcripts, captions, or alt-text. The application itself is in English for the time being, but we also welcome proposals for LingComm projects that aren’t in English.
Do I have to have experience at doing LingComm?
No! You just have to have a good idea that you can realistically make happen. Everyone has to start their lingcomm career somewhere, so maybe this will be your start!
To help make a stronger application, we encourage you to think creatively and tell us about how other aspects of your life may have prepared you for whatever you’re thinking about doing in regard to lingcomm.
Can I apply for an existing project?
Yes! Just make clear how the money will help you to make the project better. (One idea is to use the money for an accessibility upgrade for a current project, such as by creating transcripts or translations.)
How many grants are you giving out?
We will give out at least ten $100 (USD) and one $500 (USD) grant in 2022, possibly more if people contribute or sponsor grants through the LingComm Grant Fund!
Update, Jan 26, 2022: We’re now giving out a second LingComm Project Grant thanks to the generosity of Rob Monarch!
Update, Feb 3, 2022: We’re now giving out two more LingComm Project Grants, thanks to the generosity of Manish Goregaokar and friends of Kirby Conrod!
This is an ongoing experiment which we first ran in 2020 and we have not yet decided in what configuration grant(s) may happen in future years. It depends on how this year goes! To stay in the loop when we announce the winners and find out about other future LingComm Grant updates, sign up for the Lingthusiasm monthly email list.
What can I spend the money on? Can I pay myself?
There are no specific rules, restrictions, or reporting requirements about how you spend the money. (No keeping track of receipts!) We will simply send you $100 or $500 in April and you can spend it however you see fit, whether that’s on equipment, tools, website hosting, paying yourself or someone else for time, something else, or some combination.
You will, however, have a collection of linguistics fans online who are following the LingComm results and excited to see what you make! No pressure 🙂
In that case, why does the application ask for a sample budget?
The sample budget question is to help you show us that you have a concrete plan for how to spend the money and that you’ve looked up what things cost. You might find when doing so that some things are more or less expensive than you realized (domain names, for example, can be surprisingly cheap by themselves!) and we think it would be more helpful for you to figure this out at the planning stage rather than at the money stage. It’s probably most helpful here to give approximate but concrete figures (e.g. if something costs $13.99 you can round to $15, or if you’re unsure give a range like $20-30). Also feel free to use a local currency if that’s easier for you, just tell us what you’re using!
Can I apply for the LingComm Grant as part of a team? Can I use the LingComm Grant to pay someone else?
Yes, we encourage team applications! Please submit a single application and list all of your names together. You can also use the LingComm Grant to pay someone else for a distinct portion of the project, but if someone is working on it ongoingly, they should be a co-applicant. (For example, paying a visual artist once to make a logo is fine, but if your project involves ongoing art such as a comic strip, then the artist should be part of the application team!)
Profs, for example, should not apply for LingComm Grants to pay students to do a linguistics communication project. Rather, forward the application to your students or recent grads and encourage them to devise a project of their own to apply for!
As a general note, we’re funding these grants because we now have stable incomes and find it satisfying to divert a portion of our fancy cheese budget to helping more linguistics communication exist in the world, as we would have appreciated in our own early days of lingcomm. If you have a well-paying job already, we’d very much appreciate you helping us make more LingComm Grants exist!
What’s the difference between applying for the Startup Grant and the Project Grant? Can I apply for both?
When we were running the 2020 LingComm Grants, we noticed that some applicants seemed to be looking for just a little boost for not-especially-expensive parts of a project such as buying a domain name or similar small startup costs, so we created the LingComm Startup Grants for 2022 in order to help a greater number of projects with an initial vote of confidence and smaller need for funds.
The LingComm Project Grants are the original $500 amount from 2020, which is still a number that makes sense for a more substantial project, such as one that needs equipment or to buy out time for the grantee(s).
All applications will be considered for the $100 Startup Grants by default; applicants wishing to be considered for the $500 Project Grants will be asked to clearly articulate what the additional funds will allow them to accomplish that’s different from what they could do with $100.
That being said, we recognize that $500 is also a limited amount of money and we will be favouring projects that have a feasible scope within the constraints. You can always do a Phase 2 or Season 2 later if it goes really well, but your Phase 1 should produce something tangible early on even if Phase 2 never happens.
Can I apply to the LingComm Grants for more than one project?
You can apply for at most one solo project, and at most one project with the same team of people, however, there is in principle no limit on the number of different project teams that an individual person can be a co-applicant on. That said, like with the scoping of the projects in the first place, we encourage you to reasonably assess your energy levels and ability to create multiple things, and to not over-commit yourself. Furthermore, one of our goals with these grants is to broaden the field of LingComm, and giving out several grants to a single person is less likely to accomplish that goal.
Do I need to be based in a particular place?
Nope! Anywhere that we’re able to electronically transfer money is fine. Since we’re based in Canada and Australia already, the mentoring meeting will happen electronically anyway, via videochat, audio call, text chat, as you prefer.
Does it need to be an internet-based project?
Not necessarily! If you want to do linguistics with a physical group of people in your local community, that’s also great! In this case, we encourage you to post about any activities you did or write up a blog post about it, to help anyone who wants to do something similar.
Does it matter if I’m a patron of Lingthusiasm when applying to the LingComm Grant?
It doesn’t matter one way or the other. We will not be looking at whether applicants are patrons or not.
How can I support the LingComm Grant?
The LingComm Grant is funded through the kind support of the Lingthusiasm patrons on Patreon. If you’d like to help us offer LingComm Grants again in the future and get fun Lingthusiasm perks in the meantime, such as bonus episodes and a Lingthusiast sticker, you can become a patron too!
You can also make a one-time contribution to more LingComm Grants existing in 2022.
No but seriously, I have a well-paying job, how can I support the LingComm Grant a LOT?
If you’re especially excited about lingcomm and have cash to spare, you can also sponsor a whole LingComm Grant existing, at either the Startup ($100) or Project ($500) levels, for which we are very happy to thank you or acknowledge you anonymously on the Grantees page.
We’re open to additional LingComm Grants for the 2022 application cycle until March 31, 2022 — after that date, any funds received will be held for potential future years. Because we cover international transfer fees for grantees rather than eating into their grant monies, a $100 grant costs $110 to sponsor and a $500 grant costs $525 to sponsor.
I’d like to support the LingComm Grant, but I don’t have money to spare
The LingComm Grant only works if we also get applications, so it’s also a big help to share it with anyone you think might be interested in lingcomm!
We’ll also be posting about the grantee(s) once decided, so we encourage you to support them as well by checking out their projects, following them on social media, etc.
Do you have any samples of what LingComm Grant projects might look like?
You can check out our Grantees page to see what the 2020 projects and their descriptions looked like! We’re really pleased with how all of them turned out!
Note, however, that these were all $500 LingComm Project Grants and we are expecting less ambitious projects from the $100 LingComm Startup Grants, and also that we’re open to delightful new ideas in addition to the kinds of things we’ve already seen!
I don’t really need a grant myself, but I love the idea of feeling like I am part of a broader lingcomm community!
We applaud your sense of enthusiasm, and yes, you don’t need to apply for or recieve a LingComm Grant to be doing lingcomm, especially if you already have other sources of funds! You might also be interested in the LingComm Conference, other news and resources, and engaging with people interested in #lingcomm and @LingComm on twitter.
What if I want to know more about lingcomm?
Check out our Resources page for pointers to other lingcomm projects for inspiration, meta resources for doing lingcomm, and other resources on scicomm and indie web projects, such as Creative Commons. We’ll also be updating our public lingcomm resources as we find out other questions that people have about lingcomm, through the mentorship part of the program.
How can I stay in the loop about the LingComm Grant?
To find out when we announce the winners and other LingComm Grant updates, sign up for the Lingthusiasm monthly email list.
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