In March 2025, we worked with a client to submit a grant proposal to a federal funding agency. This proposal was over a year in the making. It began with submission of a two-page proposal summary in July 2024, which was approved for submission of a full proposal. The team, including collaborators nationwide, completed significant work to develop the planning scope and methodology. The full proposal was submitted on a Monday, and by that Friday an executive order was issued to eliminate the functions of this agency (among other federal services) to the minimum presence required by law. Our proposal was not one of a handful that were awarded in a much-reduced award cycle.
The point of sharing this experience is to demonstrate that we have personally experienced the reductions and changes of federal funding that are touching so many researchers and organizations right now. But, regardless of this disappointing outcome, much was accomplished during the project development phase. New relationships were created that led to recruiting expert partners for the project, building a sustainable plan for the future of the field, and spreading knowledge of the project’s resources to those in emerging technologies and AI. The project didn’t die because the funder ceased to exist. Instead, the resulting plan is solid and can be reactivated when appropriate funders can be identified.
Similar to our experiences, many libraries, museums, and researchers around the country were caught off guard by the unexpected reduction of the Institute of Museum and Library Services earlier this year. The implications of IMLS’s closure are impacting public library patrons every day across the country through the disappearance of funds previously distributed to libraries through each state. There is a long history to this funding. The Library Services Act was passed by Congress in 1956 and was modified to become the Library Services and Construction Act in 1964 and later the Library Services and Technology Act in 1996. These public tax dollars, allocated by formulas related to population size, are the only federal funds exclusively dedicated supporting libraries in the United States. These federal funds have been annually distributed to states to support library programs and services of all types such as Interlibrary Loan. Other stable annual operating funds to libraries have traditionally come from local government tax allocations to public libraries, or in the case of academic libraries, from line-items in their institutions’ general operating budgets. But, as we are experiencing, core funding can suddenly disappear.
What do we make of this moment?
1. Funding Opportunities Still Exist
Some degree of change is always normal. Funders have historically changed their funding priorities over the years. Historically, federal and local government priorities have typically changed less often than those of private foundations; our government agencies could be seen as reliable, steady funders making consistent grant awards over time with small incremental changes to their priorities and new initiatives. Grantseekers watch for these changes and align their work to the new priorities. Even in this unusual moment of larger shifts in federal funding priorities, many of these changes can be absorbed within libraries over time if it’s done collaboratively and in a team environment.
For example, in March 2025, the presidential administration issued executive orders which directly impacted the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH began updating its funding priorities accordingly. The NEH website features a public description of the changes and a transparent Q&A. You will also find the NEH announcing the largest grant award in the agency’s history, as well as several new and timely funding opportunities.
2. Preparedness Ensures Stability
This current moment reveals that the long-term stability—and reliance on these limited sources of funding has created a dangerous dependency for libraries. As a result, many public and academic libraries, unlike established non-profit organizations, have never diversified their funding streams. It should be noted that organizations of any type are never stagnant—they either move towards entropy (a gradual decline leading to crisis) or towards growth and sustainability. So, libraries, like other organizations, can either prepare themselves for future growth or risk being undermined by a crisis.
A good example of preparedness is National Public Radio (NPR). Although it was the recipient of consistent federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (directly and then through local stations who purchase NPR programs) since it launched programming in 1971, the 2025 end to this funding did not destroy NPR programming nationwide. Through many years of cultivating a diverse income stream through local patronage, memberships, corporate sponsorships, foundation funding, and private donors, NPR had prepared itself for the loss of federal funding. As a result, in July 2025, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation joined forces to grant NPR $37 million in emergency programming funds to sustain public radio stations across the country as they continue to fundraise to shore up general operating funds.
3. Diversifying Funding Strengthens Resilience
To prepare for future chaos in stable funding streams for libraries, library workers, volunteers, and board members must begin identifying alternative funders if they are to survive. We recommend these initial ways to prepare for these occurrences:
- Build, activate, and acknowledge existing networks of supporters, partners, and patrons;
- Start communicating regularly about the good work happening in libraries through every available outlet;
- Create and share a list of projects that require funding, including salaries for current and future employees;
- Gather information about funding sources in your community; ask, “Who is funding ________?” and identify the most accessible opportunities;
- Don’t stop reaching out to build new relationships with “strangers” …individuals and members of organizations locally, regionally, and nationally; and
- Learn about others’ successes where those cases can be learned from and modeled in your own organization.
This is not linear work, and if you stop doing it in the hard times you will always be behind. Give it time and space in your organization for at least three years, and you will see the fruits.
4. Tips on Federal Grantseeking in a Time of Transition
For organizations pursuing federal funding sources, there are some good practices to follow:
- Emphasize broad inclusivity. Even if you are working in a certain subfield, conference, or community, your work is designed to serve and will benefit all Americans. Take credit for this.
- Avoid prohibited terms and subjects. You can learn which terms are prohibited by reading the funding agency website and/or related executive orders. These may include “climate change,” “clean energy,” and “DEI.”
- Emphasize translational work and artificial intelligence (AI). Translational refers to applying new discoveries and programs developed in one area to serve the general public in multiple situations. And AI is unquestionably where innovation is happening; we should direct our resources to improving, adopting, and educating about it for advancing educational and library services.
- Finally, because of the possibility of ongoing change in funder priorities, it’s particularly important to get in touch with the program officer with a summary of your proposed grant application before investing hours in its preparation. The program officer may advise you to submit your project idea to a different program, at a later time when it’s more appropriate, or with recommendations for changes. Listen carefully and follow their guidance
Remember that grantseeking is not the same thing as grant writing. Collaborative grantseeking is about developing, growing, and nurturing partnerships and practices that position an organization to consistently look for funding opportunities, develop feasible projects with partners, and submit fundable proposals on a regular basis. Organizations engaged in collaborative grantseeking can weather any storm.