IP Briefing: What's Going on With Philanthropy for Writing and Literature?

In a sentence: Philanthropy for writing and literature is minuscule compared to other arts, but the field has some steadfast supporters.

What’s going on

Philanthropic support for writing and literature is scant compared to other arts, we reported in a deep-dive State of American Philanthropy report. Both music and theater have denser networks of nonprofits, while literary nonprofits tend to be smaller and less visible than other arts organizations.

Funding for writing and literature flows to individual writers, nonprofit literary arts organizations, and education organizations. Within this field, education groups like Youth Speaks and 826 Valencia tend to receive the most grant dollars. There is a distinct dearth of support for rurally focused organizations and nonprofit publishers, though the latter may be critical to the survival of a diverse literary culture as commercial publishing continues to consolidate and focus on bestsellers.

Corporate philanthropy tends to back book festivals in the form of sponsorships, while literary magazines rely heavily on earned income from subscriptions, ads and fundraising events—or an individual benefactor. The National Endowment for the Arts and city and state arts councils provide some public funding to literary organizations and individual artists.

By the numbers

Institutional funders gave $418 million to writing and literature programs in the United States from 2014 to 2018, according to data from Candid. That’s nearly 15 times less than giving to the visual arts, and four times less than giving for music.

Key funders

Philanthropy for writing and literature is dominated by private foundations. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a standout among them, followed by the Lannan and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations. The Whiting Foundation is notable for being focused on the literary arts.

Community foundations are important players at the local level, especially in funding literacy and creative writing programs for children. Amazon and Target are the most prominent corporate supporters of literary nonprofits.

Major donors don’t often make huge gifts in this area. A notable exception was a 2002 gift of $200 million from Ruth Lilly, heir to the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation, to the Poetry Foundation. Dolly Parton’s impactful Imagination Library gives away more than 1 million books per month.

Intermediaries like the Academy of American Poets and the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses help larger funders select grantees and regrant funds to writers and smaller organizations.

New and notable

Elizabeth Alexander may be writing and literature’s most important philanthropic advocate. The esteemed poet and writer is also president of the Mellon Foundation, and was previously director of creativity and free expression at the Ford Foundation. Under Alexander, Mellon has launched major funding initiatives related to literature, such as a $4.5 million grant to the Academy of American Poets to fund poet laureate fellowships across the United States.
Emergency funds were a lifeline for nonprofit literary organizations in the early months of the pandemic. The Academy of American Poets, for example, made emergency grants to 282 organizations in 2020 through a $3.5 million Literary Arts Emergency Fund funded by the Mellon Foundation.
The Speculative Literature Foundation is one funder that’s made changes to its grant program specifically to address issues of diversity and equity.
The Art for Justice Fund, launched by collector Agnes Gund with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, funds artists who are disrupting mass incarceration. Understanding the written word as an important tool in the struggle for decarceration, the fund has prominently supported literary organizations including the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, PEN America, and the National Book Foundation.

Food for thought

“There are very few writers who go on to have prominent careers who have not been nurtured along the way by smaller grants and prizes and by residencies.” — Daniel Reid, executive director of the Whiting Foundation, here.

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