The Origins of GrantSelect
GrantSelect has its roots in academic research. Back in 1973, the founder of Oryx Press, a Phoenix-based information publisher, purchased the card file from an academic research administrator in New York. The card file contained information on post-graduate research and demonstration grants and was then converted into a magnetic tape database. From the database a monthly series of faculty bulletins were generated in various subject areas for college and university grants offices. A year later, a hardcover annual volume, Directory of Research Grants, was produced from the same database for sale to libraries. And a year after that, the GRANTS file went online.
As the database grew, more print directories were generated, the Directory of Grants in the Humanities and Directory of Biomedical and Health Care Grants. By 1990 the GRANTS database was then introduced to the Internet as GrantSelect.
In 2000, Oryx Press was acquired by Greenwood Publishing, which included the rights and responsibilities of GrantSelect. The database continued to expand, and other titles were offered in print, including Funding Sources for K-12 Education, Funding Sources for Community and Economic Development, Operating Grants for Nonprofit Organizations, and Funding Sources for Children and Youth Programs.
By 2006, Greenwood decided to discontinue the online service of GrantSelect and was ready to shut its electronic doors on the database. However, Schoolhouse Partners, an education and grants consulting firm in Central Indiana, acquired GrantSelect from Greenwood Publishing. The database has returned to its grassroots and continues to offer a broad range of grant opportunties for academic research as well as community projects. Schoolhouse Partners is now an imprint of Littleberry Press which continues to publish the printed grants directories and more.
We Stand Against Racism
GrantSelect empowers community programs, academic researchers, arts organizations, and other cultural stakeholders by helping nonprofits and educational institutions to overcome financial barriers to program implementation. GrantSelect’s subscribers include individual grant seekers and grant-seeking organizations from every sector. Many nonprofit subscribers face practical barriers and oppressive experiences through the individuals they serve, because of individual and systemic unequal power related to race, ability, age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, and immigration status. It is our hope that we can level the playing field for such individuals and organizations by making available information about funding programs that can empower vital programs for the marginalized and the oppressed.
We are committed to anti-bias and anti-racism principles in all areas of our work and our personal lives. Our commitment is grounded in the belief we are all members of the human race, and each individual deserves care and respect. We acknowledge the existence of discrimination, and we choose to make a conscious effort to challenge it in every way that we can.