W-G Foundation Application Guide

Global Initiatives Grant

Applicant Profile

We will ask you to tell us about yourself.

  1. Applicant contact information. This includes your full or chosen name (first, middle, and surname), email address, and other contact details. Please do know that, should you be funded, the mailing address you provide will be reported to the IRS and made publicly available, so we advise you to use your department, business, or PO box address.

  2. Applicant educational history and current position. This includes your highest academic degree, the discipline of your degree, the year it was awarded, the institution where you received it, and your current academic appointment. We will also ask whether English is your and/or your institution’s primary scholarly language. Note that we are currently only accepting applications from scholars with a Ph.D. in anthropology—socio-cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, biological anthropology, or archeology (or their equivalent in countries where these fields are named differently)—or who are currently affiliated with anthropology departments or their equivalents. 

  3. Applicant personal information (optional). In an effort to promote greater equity in funding, we ask whether you are willing to share some confidential demographic information about yourself. We will remove any identifiers and analyze this data in the aggregate. This section of the application is entirely optional. Your answers to these questions will have no bearing on the success of your application. Our questions concern citizenship, gender identity, pronouns, sexual identity, disability, caregiving responsibilities, your parents’ highest level of education, income insecurity, race and ethnicity, Indigenous affiliation, and how you decided to apply for this program.

Project Information

  1. Project title. This should be 25 words or fewer and contain enough information to tell us what your project is about. Please do know that, should you be funded, the title you provide will be reported on the Foundation’s annual tax return filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. This tax return is a publicly available document.

  2. Total amount requested in U.S. dollars. We will also ask you for a detailed budget.

  3. Three keywords or phrases that best describe your project.

  4. Your subdiscipline and regional or topical area.

  5. Project duration and location information, including the project start date. Your project can take place over a period longer than 12 months, and if you wish to do your project in phases, that’s just fine. Your start date should fall after January 1 of the year in which you apply.

  6. Principal collaborators. These are the individuals who helped design the project and will work with you to ensure its success.

  7. Additional partners and collaborators. These can include academic collaborators and others responsible for carrying out crucial yet limited portions of your proposed project.

  8. A curriculum vitae for the applicant and any key collaborators. The project team should include appropriate expertise for each major component of the project. For example, a podcast project should include a professional producer, and a project with a museum exhibition component should include a professional fabricator.

  9. You will be asked whether you used Generative AI in producing this application. If you answer “yes,” you’ll then be asked to describe the tools you used, the prompts you entered, the tasks you accomplished, and how you checked your work for accuracy. This information will not be provided to reviewers and will not factor into any award decisions. We are collecting this information to better understand how Generative AI is shaping the funding landscape. We will analyze responses in aggregate to track trends over time. See our Generative AI policy.

Abstract

Your abstract is a very important component of your application. In language that an interested layperson could understand, you need to convey what’s at the heart of your project. Your abstract should convey the “why,” “what,” and “where” of your project while giving the reader a sense of the “how”—that is, the methods you and your collaborators will use to address the problem you’ve posed. Your abstract will be the shortest part of your proposal, but it will also be the hardest to write. You and your collaborators will need to have a very clear idea of your plans to do a good job. You probably should write it last. [Limit: 200 words]

Budget

You will be asked to submit a detailed line-item budget with your application. The total should be at or near $80,000.

It is important to include a detailed breakdown, showing how you estimated expenses in each category. Please explain in detail why you need what you are asking us for. We will not consider items that are not fully justified for funding. Please note: we do not provide a budget template for this program and the Wenner-Gren Foundation does not cover institutional overhead for this or any of its programs.

Project Description Questions

We will ask you to answer six project description questions. To make the best possible case for your work, it’s a good idea to use all the space provided.

Question 1: What specific advance in public anthropology will your project achieve, and how will it strengthen anthropology’s ability to reach and influence audiences beyond the academy? [Limit: 1000 words]

The Foundation is especially interested in ambitious projects that make a specific, achievable advance in public anthropology. Strong proposals may focus on particular issues, publics, or contexts, but they should have significance beyond a single event, site, or narrowly defined audience.

Explain what your project will make possible that is not already happening. Will it create a new platform, strategy, training model, partnership, public resource, or method for bringing anthropological knowledge into wider circulation?

Successful proposals should also show how the project will matter beyond the grant period, either by offering a model that can inform work elsewhere or by building lasting capacity. Be specific about the advance you hope to achieve and why it matters.

More narrowly framed community, research, writing, or media projects may be better suited for one of Wenner-Gren’s other funding programs.

Question 2: Which public audiences are you targeting and how will you reach them? [Limit: 1000 words]

Identify your target audiences and explain why they matter. Be specific about their size, characteristics, and current relationship to anthropology. If relevant, describe your existing audience, how you will reach new audiences, and how you will grow engagement.

Place your project in context. What similar efforts have been tried, what lessons will guide your approach, and why is this the right moment?

What obstacles limit anthropology’s public reach in this context, and how will your project address them? How will you define success, and what evidence will you use to measure reach, engagement, influence, or impact?

Question 3: What collaborations will be involved in helping you reach your goals? [Limit: 500 words]

Think carefully about the skills needed to carry out the project successfully. Describe the core team, key collaborators, and broader networks that will help you reach your goals. Please be specific about who is involved, what they will do, and why they are well suited to the project. Depending on the project, this may include collaboration with journalists, filmmakers, producers, educators, policy experts, designers, activists, community leaders, or university administrators. Explain which team members or collaborators have the professional expertise needed to carry out the project’s major public-facing components.

Question 4: What is your work plan, timeline, and evaluation strategy? [Limit: 1000 words]

Describe the steps you and your collaborators will take to achieve your goals. What activities will the grant support, who will carry them out, and when? Include a clear project timeline.

Explain what work has already been completed and what remains to be done. If the project depends on partners, permissions, or institutional cooperation, describe the commitments already in place.

Identify the outcomes you expect to achieve and how you will measure success. What evidence will show that the project reached its audiences, strengthened public anthropology, or created a model or lasting capacity?

Describe how the project will be managed. Who will provide oversight and accountability, and how will the team respond to problems or opportunities as they arise?

Question 5: Is this initiative a targeted short-term high-impact intervention or a long-term infrastructure project? [Limit: 500 words]

Explain whether and why your project is designed as a targeted, high-impact response to an emerging crisis or opportunity, or as an effort to build lasting infrastructure for public anthropology.

If short-term, explain why a concentrated investment is needed and what impact it will make possible. If long-term, explain in close detail how the project will be sustained after the grant period, including the financial, technical, and administrative support it will require.

For long-term initiatives, provide evidence for the sustainability model you are developing, such as future grants, institutional commitments, partnerships, earned revenue, subscriptions, donations, or other forms of support.

Question 6: What assumptions in your proposal are most likely to be tested once the work begins? [Limit: 500 words]

Identify the key assumptions your project depends on. These might involve audience interest, partner participation, institutional support, technology, staffing, public reception, political conditions, funding, or the feasibility of your timeline. Which assumptions are most uncertain, and how will you know if they are holding up? What will you do if they prove incorrect? Explain how the team will monitor progress, learn from the work as it unfolds, and adapt when needed.

Project Sample

Demonstrate that you have the expertise and wherewithal to implement your project. For example, if you are proposing podcasts, provide a sample episode. If you are proposing an exhibit, provide mockups of panels. These samples do not need to be completed or fully polished. They should provide convincing evidence that you and your collaborators can translate the project idea into successful products and activities.

Optional URL for Access to Figures

You will have a chance to upload charts, maps, or graphs that you refer to in your response to the project description questions. Please use this option sparingly. Only include figures that are essential for communicating your plans and goals.

References Cited

You should tailor your references specifically for this proposal. Focus on the project’s objectives and the broader conversations and debates that have inspired you and your collaborators.

You’ll have a chance to upload a list of your references cited on our online system. Please use a format compatible with Microsoft Word.

  1. Only list the sources that you cite in your resubmission statement or your responses to the project description questions.

  2. In-text citations should take the form of the authors’ name(s), year, and, where relevant, page number(s). Please format the citations as shown in these examples: (Baviskar 1995), (Friedner and Osborne 2015), (Nelson et al. 2017), (Zee 2020: 1068), (Baviskar 1995; Friedner and Osborne 2015; Nelson et al. 2017; Zee 2020: 1068).

  3. Your references cited should not exceed two pages, using single-line spacing and 10-point font or larger.

  4. Make sure your references cited list is complete, listed in alphabetical order, and presented in one of the bibliographic formats found in major English language anthropological journals (such as Current Anthropology, Ethnos, or the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, among others). Whichever model you choose, be consistent throughout.