Project & Presidential Awards: Economic Grants to Look At

pplication Process and Deadlines
Deadlines for both letters of inquiry and project proposals are oriented around the Foundation’s regularly-scheduled Board meetings. All Project Awards with budget requests greater than $35,000 must be approved by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees; all budget requests up to $35,000 are treated as Presidential Authority Awards and may be approved without prior Board review.

All potential projects must be preceded by a letter of inquiry. We encourage interested applicants to submit letters of inquiry in advance of the deadline to allow adequate time for program staff to respond to the letter and, if invited, for investigators to prepare a well-developed proposal. Deadlines for submission are as follows:

For a funding decision in: Letter of Inquiry Deadline: Invited Proposal Deadline:
February 2015 August 29 (5PM Eastern Time) November 14 (5PM Eastern Time)
June 2015 January 16 (5PM Eastern Time) March 16 (5PM Eastern Time)
November 2014 June 2 (5PM Eastern Time) August 1 (5PM Eastern Time)
*Presidential Authority Awards (≤ $35,000) are peer-reviewed but do not have to be approved by the Board of Trustees. The Foundation may make decisions about applications within 3 months of proposal submission if the proposed project is time constrained and is submitted in between deadlines. This is subject to the availability of funds.

Submit a letter of inquiry (LOI) or project proposal here.
Click here for detailed information about eligibility, budgets, proposals, and other requirements and guidelines.
Click here for a list of frequently asked questions about applying for an award.

What We Support
The Russell Sage Foundation was established by Mrs. Margaret Olivia Sage in 1907 for “the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.” RSF now carries out that mission by sponsoring rigorous social scientific research as a means of diagnosing social problems and improving social policies. In sponsoring this research, the Foundation is dedicated to strengthening the methods, data, and theoretical core of the social sciences. The Foundation’s awards are restricted to support for social science research within the following five program areas:

  • Behavioral Economics – The program in Behavioral Economics focuses on research that incorporates insights of psychology and other social sciences into the study of economic behavior.
  • Cultural Contact – The program in Cultural Contact is focused on research that examines the effects of cultural difference on the ways in which different groups in the population understand and interact with one another, and with particular attention to the response of economic, social, and political institutions in the US to increasing diversity.
  • Future of Work – The program in the Future of Work is concerned primarily with examining the causes and consequences of the declining quality of jobs for less- and moderately-educated workers in the U.S. economy and the role of changes in employer practices. The program is also concerned with the nature of the labor market and public policies on the employment, earnings, and job quality of American workers.
  • Immigration – The program in Immigration focuses on research that examines social, economic, political, and community changes in the context of contemporary immigration and the role of race, nativity and legal status on the prospects for integration of immigrants and their children.
  • Social Inequality – The program in Social Inequality is focused on how rising economic inequality is related to social, political, and economic institutions in the U.S., and the extent to which increased inequality has affected equality of opportunity, social mobility, and the intergenerational transmission of advantage.

The Foundation typically makes awards up to $150,000. Any requests up to $35,000 are processed as Presidential Authority Award applications and cannot include any overhead or indirect costs. The Foundation provides support primarily for analyzing data and writing up results. The Foundation is particularly interested in innovative projects that collect or analyze new data to illuminate issues that are highly relevant to the Foundation’s program goals.

Article content from: http://www.russellsage.org/how-to-apply.