OVERVIEW

In late Spring 2025, KlezCalifornia will award a fourth round of grants from The Yiddish Culture Fund. The application deadline for this round is April 1. See grants awarded Fall 2024, Spring 2024 and Fall 2023.

As you think about applying, please carefully read the criteria below. Numerous proposals submitted have not met the criteria. Please include all information requested.

PRIORITIES

Grants from The Yiddish Culture Fund will amplify the growing interest in Yiddish culture and help develop the next generation of Yiddish culture leaders and producers in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. For in-person events, we will give priority to projects in the region (as defined below). We will consider in-person events held outside the region if they are hybrid (offer an online option) so Bay Area residents can participate, and on-line events. We will also consider projects that are not events at all, as long as S.F. Bay Area residents can benefit from them. Grantees may be individuals or groups (incorporated or not, charitable organizations or not).

KlezCalifornia will support funded projects with event publicity to our 3,000-member mailing list, offer access to our connections if wanted, and provide mentoring if requested. In the longer term, we want to engage with new Yiddish culture leaders in strategic thinking about the future of Bay Area Yiddish cultural activities.

Successful proposals must meet these three criteria:
• Are activities organized by the next generation of Yiddish culture leaders or designed to attract people who might become those leaders in the greater San Francisco Bay Area
• Are participatory, in which individuals learn and practice skills
• For proposals involving S.F. Bay Area events, for this round of grantmaking we define acceptable counties as Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma.

We also encourage proposals to meet these criteria:
• Are new or early-stage projects by individuals and groups
• Are hybrid (simultaneously in-person and online) events, to promote accessibility
• Network with Jewish and/or other community infrastructure, in addition to KlezCalifornia
• Have the potential to be financially sustainable over time.

Examples of projects we encourage:
• Regularly scheduled or one-time events: jams, sing-alongs, Yiddish conversation groups, Yiddish literature classes (in Yiddish or translation), workshops, performances, festivals, in-school events.
• Translating, transcribing, or creating Yiddish cultural works for a public event. 
• Subsidy for registration, housing, or travel for a next generation leader to attend a Yiddish culture event (such as KlezKanada, Yiddish New York, Yidish Vokh) if the person has applied for support from those groups, needs an extra subsidy, and commits to organizing (not only performing at) specific event(s) when they return home. 

We will consider proposals for out-of-region artists to perform and/or teach in the Bay Area only if the proposals specify the local (Bay Area) organizers and presenters and explain in detail how the organizers will work to attract younger audiences. Our interest is in the leadership skills refined by the organizers and in new organizers recruited through their participation.

Venues to consider may include ones KlezCalifornia has identified as performance spaces and as workshop spaces.

We will not fund:
• Research
• Journalism, whether print, web, or film/video
• Projects that do not include a related public presentation (such as a recording with no corresponding performance)
• Lectures/classes/performances that are neither created by nor targeted to the next generation of Yiddish culture enthusiasts
• Fundraising events
• Religious or political activities.

Principal project leaders will be added to KlezCalifornia’s mailing list for at least the grant period. Projects receiving grants must include, in both online and printed event publicity, “Presented with support from KlezCalifornia’s Yiddish Culture Fund.” We encourage grantees to present their events “in association with KlezCalifornia” and to permit a one-time blast to their mailing list inviting people to join KlezCalifornia’s mailing list.

APPLICATION FORMAT

In an email to grants@klezcalifornia.org, provide:

• Name(s) of applicant(s), with email addresses, phones, mailing addresses, and ages
• Status of applicant(s): individual, group of individuals, business (such as a band), incorporated organization, charity, etc.
• Project description: at least one paragraph, no more than one page (If you are outside the San Francisco Bay Area and proposing to perform and/or teach in the Bay Area, include the names of individuals in the Bay Area who have agreed to be your event’s organizer(s).)
• Qualifications of applicant(s)
• Project beginning and ending dates
• Project budget (income and expenses), indicating time period and showing no net loss
• Requested grant amount (between $300 and $3,000)
• Anything else you want to tell us (up to one paragraph).

APPROVAL PROCESS

KlezCalifornia’s Yiddish Culture Fund Advisory Committee makes recommendations to KlezCalifornia’s Board of Directors, whose decisions are final. The fourth round of grant awards will be announced in late Spring 2025.

REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

One-time projects: one brief report indicating funds expended, accomplishments, and event description (if appropriate).


Longer-term projects: semiannual or at most quarterly brief reports with the above information.

Complete reports must be submitted within 30 days of completion of the project.

SUPPORTING THE YIDDISH CULTURE FUND 

We encourage tax-deductible contributions of all amounts to sustain The Yiddish Culture Fund.

KlezCalifornia, Inc.
6714 Gladys Ave, El Cerrito, CA 94530
415-789-7679
grants@klezcalifornia.org