The goal of the Illinois Humanities Road Scholars Speakers Bureau is to offer cultural programs that are not only fascinating and compelling but also broadly accessible and welcoming to the general public. In keeping with that goal, organizations that wish to host Road Scholars presentations must agree to abide by the following policies.

Meeting all of these requirements does not necessarily guarantee that an application will be approved. Violations of them may result in the denial of future applications.

• Private clubs may not apply. In addition, presentations may not be held in a private home. All Road Scholars Speakers Bureau events must be open to the public.
• No event may have audience restrictions. Suggested audiences, such as a “recommendation for children” for programs aimed at a younger audience, are acceptable, but hard requirements or bans are not allowed.
• Organization may submit applications for presentations for calendar year 2020 through November 15, 2020.
• Organizations are permitted to host a maximum of two presentations per Illinois Humanities calendar year (event date from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020). The date counted is the event date, not the date on which you submit your application. For public entities, such as libraries or park districts, a related foundation or organization—e.g. “Friends of the Library”—is not, for these purposes, considered a separate organization and therefore will not be allowed to book additional presentations under a related foundation or ‘Friends of’ name.
• Organizations must make a demonstrable effort to promote the event to communities beyond members/patrons.
• Illinois Humanities strongly encourages all grantees to take action to ensure that people with disabilities as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act have access to benefits and services resulting from the grant-funded project.

Review the roster of presentations and select the one that you wish to host. With very rare exceptions, we do not consider applications for presentations that are not included on our current Road Scholars roster.

Once you have decided on a presentation and secured a location for your event, you must contact the speaker directly to confirm her or his availability and determine a mutually convenient date and time. The speaker’s contact information is included in the entry for her or his presentation on the roster below.

Important: In addition to reaching a verbal agreement with the speaker, you must submit an application to Illinois Humanities for approval. (See “Application Form and Fee” below.) You must do so in time for us to receive your application at least six weeks prior to the date on which you wish to hold your event. Your event is not confirmed until you receive official notification and related materials from Illinois Humanities.

Please complete and submit this application form online at least six weeks before the scheduled date of your event. We urge you to submit your application as soon as possible after you have agreed upon a date with a speaker to avoid a situation in which a speaker inadvertently exceeds the maximum number of presentations that she or he can accept in a given calendar year before your application reaches us. Remember event dates must occur from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 and applications for this time frame must be submitted by November 15, 2020.

If your application is initially approved, you will receive an e-mail message containing a link to an online payment system that will enable you to pay the processing fee of $75 using a credit or debit card. Please pay this fee within 14 business days after receiving notice of approval. If you need to pay by check, please contact Jenn Yoo at jennifer.yoo@ilhumanities.org. After we receive payment, we will send you an e-mail message confirming final approval and containing various materials, including a press release template and an audience evaluation survey. If your organization is experiencing financial hardship, we will waive the application fee.

Wait for confirmation that Illinois Humanities has approved your application. Please do not begin to publicize your event until you have received official approval from Illinois Humanities.

We will notify you of our decision. If your application has been approved, you will receive an award packet by e-mail.  It will include materials that may be used in publicizing the event, a feedback survey form that is to be copied and distributed to the audience and collected at the conclusion of the event, and a brief final report form.

At the beginning of the event, please inform the audience that your organization is hosting the presentation in partnership with the Illinois Humanities Road Scholars Speakers Bureau. We would greatly appreciate your mentioning Illinois Humanities by name.

Additionally, please give copies of the feedback survey form and welcome letter, which you will have received as part of your award packet, to everyone in attendance. Please ask them to complete the survey form at the conclusion of the presentation and return it to you. Please explain to them that Illinois Humanities takes their feedback seriously and uses it both in making decisions about future programming and in making its case for public and private support. Please collect the feedback survey forms from the audience when the event concludes.

After the event, Illinois Humanities will send the speaker’s honorarium and reimbursement of his/her expenses directly to him/her, not through your organization.

Please complete the brief final report form that you will have received as part of your award packet. Please submit the final report to us along with the completed audience feedback survey forms no more than 30 days following your event. The surveys can be scanned an emailed to Zerline Thompson at zerline.thompson@ilhumanities.org.