NEA Poetry Out Loud: 2018 National Finals Competition Grant from National Endowment for the Arts

This Cooperative Agreement will begin no earlier than June 1, 2017, and may extend for up to 15 months.

Applicant Eligibility

Nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3), U.S. organizations; units of state or local government; the six U.S. regional arts organizations; or federally recognized tribal communities or tribes may apply.

This Cooperative Agreement will begin no earlier than June 1, 2017, and may extend for up to 15 months.

Program Description
Through this Program Solicitation, the National Endowment for the Arts seeks a Cooperator to produce and administer the 2018 Poetry Out Loud National Finals competition to take place April 23-25, 2018 in Washington, DC.
The National Finals are the culmination of the nationwide Poetry Out Loud (POL) program that encourages more than 365,000 high school students each year to learn about classic and contemporary poetry through memorization and performance. Students select, memorize, and recite poems from an anthology and compete for the title of National Poetry Out Loud Champion. Through a pyramid structure competition, winners advance from classroom recitation contests to school-wide competitions, then to the state competitions and, ultimately, to the National Finals. One student from every state, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico travel to the National Finals to compete for the national championship.

Scope of Work
The purpose of this Program Solicitation is to select an organization (Cooperator) to produce and coordinate the three-day 2018 POL National Finals competition of state and jurisdictional champions of the POL program, in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts and its partners. That National Finals will take place April 23-25, 2018 in Washington, DC. The National Finals competition venue and hotel have already been reserved to ensure the availability of space.