Over the past decade, philanthropic organizations and government agencies have invested significant financial resources to create digital content in the not-for-profit sector. Their grants have facilitated major digitization efforts and encouraged innovative work that paves the way for forms of scholarship possible only in an online environment. Many of these investments have developed from short-term research projects into ongoing resources important to broad communities and are generating  self-sustaining revenue. Still, the path from initial grant funding to long-term sustainability of these resources can be challenging.

What role do funders have, or could they have, in influencing the future sustainability of the projects they fund?

Project Description

Ithaka S+R, with the generous support of the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance, is currently researching funding practices concerning sustainability for online resources, with the goal of identifying common practices among funders and potential areas for improvement in the funding process. 

Through our research we will aim to answer the following questions:

• How do grant makers communicate the need for grantees to think about the long-term sustainability of their projects, even at the earliest stages of the application process? 

• How do funders decide which projects to support, and what role does sustainability planning have in the grant application process? 

• At what point does a “start-up” project need to transition to other forms of support, and how do funders help ease this transition? 

Methodology

We will be interviewing program officers and directors at funding bodies of all types – public agencies and private foundations in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Europe, to learn more about their current practices and concerns and to highlight the methods that may be working best. 

Deliverables

The final report and toolkit will be issued in Spring 2011.   For updates on this project and to be alerted when the final report is published, please sign up for  “Sustainability of Digital Resources” alerts.