Community Oral History Grant

Baylor University Institute for Oral History (BUIOH) invites nonprofit organizations in the state of Texas to apply for a grant to facilitate oral history research in their communities. BUIOH seeks to make a difference in one local Texas community through this biennial grant that includes, in addition to monetary funding, assistance from BUIOH through consultation and training, equipment loans, processing and transcribing, and co-archiving the interviews generated by the local organization. 

We are currently accepting applications for the 2023 Community Oral History Grant! Please send the application form and all application materials to BUIOH@baylor.edu. The application is deadline is March, 31 2023.

Criteria

• Community may be broadly interpreted to include organizations as well as urban neighborhoods and rural-small town settings.
• Priority will be given to organizations doing oral history for the first time and to projects that address underdocumented people, places, and events.
• We will also consider applications from existing oral history programs with a demonstrated need for our assistance with new, innovative interview projects.
• The local organization will initiate the project, carry out the interviews, and develop and arrange public programming to share the outcomes with its community.

The Baylor Institute for Oral History will support the local organization during the grant period in the following ways:

• provide the oral history interviewing project with a total grant of $2,500 (distributed in two payments: $1,250 after the training workshop and $1,250 after the majority of the interviews have been completed);
• conduct a training workshop in oral history research for project volunteers;
• loan two digital audio recorders to the project for conducting oral history interviews;
• review the first round of interviews to provide feedback to interviewers;
• consult with project organizers and volunteers throughout the project;
• process, duplicate, and transcribe the oral history recordings;
• furnish each interviewee a draft transcript for his or her review;
• furnish each interviewee a bound copy of his or her transcript;
• co-deposit the recordings and transcripts at Baylor University and a local public archive chosen by the organization receiving the grant;
• make the oral history transcripts accessible online.

• arrange a day, time, and place for a BUIOH-led training/planning workshop;
• assemble for the training workshop several persons who are committed to doing interviews for the project;
• locate a local public archive that will preserve and make accessible the recordings/transcripts;
• manage digital recording equipment loaned by BUIOH;
• locate and contact interviewees; arrange interview days, times, places;
• conduct interviews;
• obtain required signatures on interview release forms;
• create a word list of proper names and unique spellings for each interview;
• submit recordings and required forms (release form, biographical form, data sheet, word list, notes) to BUIOH;
• plan, arrange, publicize, and carry through a public program to share the outcomes with the community;
• return all equipment and supplies to BUIOH at the end of the grant period.

To complete the grant agreement, the organization will:

• receive the draft transcripts from BUIOH for the interviewees' review and distribute them to the interviewees;
• assist the interviewees in checking their draft transcripts for accurate spellings and meaning in a timely manner;
• return the reviewed draft transcripts to BUIOH for corrections;
• receive the final, bound transcripts from BUIOH and present copies to the interviewees and to the designated local archive;
• submit a final report and evaluation of the project.

FAQs

More information about the Community Oral History Grant can be found in our FAQ document (PDF)

Current and Previous Grant Recipients

See a listing of our current and past recipients of the Community Oral History Grant