Barbara Deming Memorial Fund
/OVERVIEW: The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund supports women’s projects in creative writing and the visual arts.
IP TAKE: The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund supports women writers and artists working in the feminist tradition and toward inclusive visions of social justice. This funder accepts applications for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, visual art and mixed media projects. This is a transparent funder that’s inclusive and supportive.
PROFILE: The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, also known as Money for Women, was founded in 1975 by Barbara Demings. A native of New York City, Demings graduated from Bennington College and then earned a master’s degree in drama from Case Western Reserve University. In the 1950s, she worked as a professional writer and film critic. By 1960, her writing became more political. Deming became prominent in the Second Wave of feminist thought, and she was an ardent supporter of both the anti-war and civil rights movements. She established her fund, which aims “to give financial and moral support to creative women,” with $18,000 of her personal savings. Today the fund is supported by Deming’s estate, the estate of the artist Mary Meigs and private donations. The fund supports the projects of individual women writers and artists.
Grants for Women and Girls
This funder mainly supports projects that are of a feminist perspective and that “stand against the limitations and controls exerted against women.” Projects that explore the intersections of gender, race, class and ethnicity are also of significant interest, as are projects that “express an inclusive vision of social justice.” One past grantee used funding to complete a collection of essays on women’s expressions of grief through an historical lens. Another grantee produced a series of mixed-media images about childcare, emotional labor and traditional women’s work. Cis and transgender women are eligible for grants.
Grants for Arts and Culture
The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund supports fiction and nonfiction writing, poetry, visual arts and mixed media projects that combine graphic or visual art with text. The fund does not support film, video, theatre, dance, music or performance, and it does not support self-publication projects, editing services or writing for the completion of academic degrees.
Grants for Creative Writing
Deming grants for writing support nonfiction, fiction and poetry project that are relevant to feminist thought, the study of gender or social justice. In recent years, about half of all writing grants have gone to nonfiction projects, which include essays, essay collections, biographies, memoirs, women’s history and other relevant subjects. The author Patricia Albers received support for her biography of the artist Joan Mitchell, and Beverly Bell, who founded the organization Other Worlds, received funding for her work on the book “Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance.” A recent poetry grantee, Lory Bedikian, won the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry for her collection “The Book of Lamenting,” and in fiction, grantee Gayle Brandeis’s novel “The Book of Dead Birds” won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction. The fund specifies that writing projects should be in progress to be considered for funding.
Grants for Visual Arts
In the visual arts, the fund has supported a broad array of visual, graphic and mixed media projects. Recent grantees have included projects in photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, quilting and other media. Artist Carol Larson used funding to complete her fiber art series Defining Moments, which explores children’s “naiveté” about feminist issues including body image, rape, motherhood and aging. Another grantee, Yvette Mayorga, worked with candy and frosting to explore “Utopian visions of the American Dream.” The fund’s mixed media funding is exclusive to projects that involve graphic or visual art and text and does not extend to film or performing arts.
Important Grant Details:
Grants range between $500 and $1,500, and the fund generally awards between 15 and 25 grants each year. For additional information about past grantmaking, see the fund’s grantee page.
The fund has two categories for submissions, which are offered every other year. For example, it accepts submissions for nonfiction and poetry from January 1 to January 31 of one year, while those for visual art, fiction, and mixed genre would be accepted from January 1 to January 31 the following year.
Applicants should expect to hear from the fund within five months of the deadline date. Applicants must be citizens with primary residences in the U.S. or Canada. For additional information, see the fund’s application page. General questions may be directed to the fund’s staff via email or the organization’s contact page
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