Apply for a grant from the ARRL or ARDC

By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU

In our division director’s September missive to the membership yesterday was this nugget:

ARRL IS CURRENTLY OFFERING GRANTS to fund amateur radio projects. This program, sponsored by the ARRL Foundation, is specifically for organizations and aimed primarily for education, licensing and support of ham activities. A special focus is on youth-related plans. We are now entering the last phase of this year’s grant cycle, so the opportunity exists for your club or organization to submit a grant request. You can find the full details on the grant page of the ARRL web pages, check: http://www.arrl.org/amateur-radio-grants.

The ARRL accepts grant requests three times a year:

  • February 1 – February 28
  • June 1 – June 30
  • October 1 – October 31

Since this is September 1, you have two months to get your request in. As I’ve written before, our club was awarded $1,500 to help us put up a tower for a club station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. The money is available. Go get it!

Get money from ARDC, too!

You can also get a grant for amateur radio projects from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), the outfit I’m currently working for. ARDC grants money for projects that fall into one of the following three categories:

  • Support and growth of amateur radio,
  • Education, and
  • Technical innovation.

ARDC has, for example, awarded grants to: 

  • An amateur radio club in Wisconsin (https://www.ampr.org/grants-old/grant-chippewa-valley-arc-emergency-trailer-and-equipment/) for upgrading their repeater systems and building an emergency communications trailer that they will also use to promote amateur radio in their area.
  • A California high school (https://www.ampr.org/grant-incorporaing-constructivism-and-the-maker-mentality-at-california-high-school/) whose computer science teacher will use the funds to purchase microcontrollers and transform his classroom into a maker space. With this equipment and facility, students will learn computer science by building their own projects.
  • The M17 Project (https://www.ampr.org/grant-m17-open-protocol/), whose goal is to develop a new, open-source digital radio protocol by hams, for hams, and that is easy to understand and build on.

To be eligible for an ARDC grant, an organization must be a 501(c)(3) public charity or be sponsored by a 501(c)(3) public charity.  Other eligible organizations include government entities, schools or universities, and international charities or nonprofits.

For more information on ARDC and how to apply for an ARDC grant, go to https://www.ampr.org/apply.

Dan Romanchik, KB6NU, is the author of the KB6NU amateur radio blog (KB6NU.Com), the “No Nonsense” amateur radio license study guides (https://KB6NU.Com/study-guides/), and often appears on the ICQPodcast (https://icqpodcast.com). He recently joined ARDC as their Content Manager. Among his responsibilities is spreading the word about all the cool things ARDC is doing for amateur radio.