OVERVIEW: The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation supports the humanities, performing arts, research libraries and Venetian studies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
IP TAKE: Delmas is a good source of funding for humanities-related events and conferences at colleges and universities. Its performing arts funding is limited to New York City. This funder accepts applications at any time via its online portal. While this funder accepts proposals on a rolling basis, its grants favor elite universities and colleges, so any institutions not in the top 50 private or public will be less successful. The foundation doesn’t provide partnerships or extensive support but can support sensitive work.
PROFILE: Based in New York City, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation was established in 1976 by Gladys Krieble Delmas, a journalist, and her husband, Jean Paul Delmas, a businessman and publisher. The 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.” Gladys Krieble and Jean Paul Delmas were devoted to two cities: New York and Venice. The Delmas Foundation’s grantmaking programs are humanities, performing arts, research libraries and Venetian studies.
Grants for Higher Education and Humanities Research
While the Delmas foundation does not name higher education as a specific area of grantmaking, it supports institutions of higher education via its humanities, research libraries and Venetian grantmaking programs.
- Humanities funding has gone to departments of history, archeology, literature, philosophy, religion, fine arts and, less frequently, the social sciences at public and private colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.
- While the humanities program mainly supports events and consortia in higher education, humanities research projects in and outside of academia have also received support.
- At Brown University, the foundation supported a workshop on early modern history of the Caribbean, and Columbia University used funding to produce a series of performances of early music.
- The Venetian program supports the research of individual scholars in the U.S. and the U.K. who pursue historical research on Venice or the study of contemporary Venetian culture in humanities and social science disciplines. Funded projects range from studies of early modern Venice to analyses of contemporary dialects and culture.
- Research library grants have supported projects at college and university libraries that involve the preservation, acquisition, digitization or cataloguing of important works in the humanities or performing arts.
- Past recipients include Oxford University, the University of Toronto and Emory University, which used funding to catalogue and preserve the letters of Samuel Beckett.
- One grantee, the Brooklyn Historical Society in New York City, used funding for a study of present day local cultural identities. In Chicago, the Newberry Library received funding for research on maps and ephemera of the early automobile age.
Grants for the Arts, Dance, Music, and Theater
Delmas’s arts and culture funding stems mainly from its Performing Arts Program, which focuses on dance, music and theater in New York City.
- Proposals for pre-professional programs and opera are only accepted from past grantees.
- Performing arts funding offers operating support and project development funding to professional “organizations of quality.”
- While not named as a priority, visual arts have received some funding through the humanities and research libraries programs.
- One past grantee, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was awarded a grant to run a partnership and exchange program with France’s Centre Georges Pompidou.
Important Grant Details:
In a recent year, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation made over $2.4 million in grants, which typically range in amount from a few thousand to $500,000. The average grant size for this funder is about $15,000.
- Information about past grantees is available on the foundation’s website.
- The foundation accepts applications for funding at any time via its online portal.
- Direct general inquiries to foundation staff via email or telephone at (212) 687-0011.
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