FAQ

  • To be eligible for a grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, your organization must be a nonprofit organization as determined by the IRS, a public library, school, or college providing direct literacy services within a state that Dollar General Corporation operates in and whose organization address is within 15 miles of a Dollar General store. Other eligibility requirements are specific to each grant type and can be found within the grants themselves.

  • Yes, if your organization has programs that qualify for multiple grant categories, you can apply for more than one grant type. For example, if you have a literacy program that serves adults and also run a program over the summer for youth, you could apply for both the Adult Literacy grant and the Summer Reading grant.

  • For the Adult and Family literacy grant programs, the maximum grant amount is up to $10,000. The Summer Reading maximum is $3,000 and the Youth Literacy grant is $4,000. Applying for a grant does not guarantee that amount due to the large volume of requests we receive.

  • For the Adult and Family literacy grants, there is no restriction on the number of years in a row that your organization can apply and receive grants at this time. For the Summer Reading and Youth Literacy grant, there is a “Two Year Rule” that applies to organizations receiving grants for two years in a row. They would not be eligible for the third year.

  • During open grant periods, click on the link through our website to access our grant submission platform. From the homepage, click “submit a new application” and create an account with your email address and password. From the grant programs page you will then fund the grant category you are applying for click “submit an application.” The first step is the pre-screening section, which requires your basic organization information.

    For schools, you will need your school and district ID number that can be found on the National Center for Education Statistics site (NCES) located here: https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/

    If you are a public library (and not using a 501c3 status such as a “friends” group) you will use your IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) library ID which can be found on their website: Library Search & Compare | Institute of Museum and Library Services (imls.gov)

    Verification of an organization can take up to 48 hours - we suggest not waiting until the day before a grant deadline to start this process!

  • Each grant type funds different items, but all our grants focus on student success. Below are the items the Foundation can support.

    Adult: Salaries, instructional materials, software, supplies, travel ($500 max.), training, printing and publications, computers and technology and professional development.

    Beyond Words: Books, instructional materials, computers and technology, software and supplies.

    Family: Salaries, instructional materials, software, supplies, travel ($500 max.), training, printing and publications, computers and technology and professional development.

    Summer Reading: Books, computers and technology, incentives ($500 max.), instructional materials, salaries/staff support and software.

    Youth: Books, instructional materials, computers and technology, software and professional development. 

  • Our grants are non-transferrable and must stay with the organization that was selected to receive the grant. The new contact person should reach out to the Foundation to change contact information at 615-855-5201.

  • If your organization has submitted grants in previous years, historical data will be transferred over to our new platform in the coming months. Please ensure when you create your new account, that your email matches up with your previous login on our former site to ensure a smooth transition for transferring data. During the transition, you will still be able to access your previously used account via CyberGrants:

    Adult Literacy: http://www.cybergrants.com/dollar_general/adult_literacy

    Family Literacy: http://www.cybergrants.com/dollar_general/family_literacy

    Summer Reading: http://www.cybergrants.com/dollar_general/summer

    Youth Literacy: http://www.cybergrants.com/dollar_general/youth_literacy

  • You will need to bookmark or save the log in page and your password to access the site after your application has been submitted. This is extremely important due to grant deadlines. For reference, the log in pages is: grantprograms.dgliteracy.org

  • After submitting your application, stay tuned on the announcement date. A list of grant recipients will be posted on our website, dgliteracy.org and an email will be sent to all that applied. The grant contact will receive an email whether they were selected for funding or not. If selected, your organization will receive follow up information within 10 days of the announcement date.

    Important dates for 2024:

    Date Application Type Action
    10-Jan          Adult, Family & Summer Reading        Applications go live
    15-Feb Adult, Family & Summer Reading Grant deadline
    7-Mar Youth Literacy Applications go live
    25-Apr Youth Literacy Grant deadline
    16-May Adult, Family & Summer Reading Grant announcement      
    22-Aug Youth Literacy Grant announcement

     

  • During the grant cycle: As you go through the application, you will be able to download your pre-screening and full application answers as PDFs. You will also receive an email copy of your submissions for both the pre-screening and full application for your records.

    Outside the grant cycle: We do not share questions or copies of blank applications outside the grant windows.

  • 3 possibilities :

    - The email address you entered doesn't match any of the email addresses registered in our database. In this case, please check which email address you used to create your account (a confirmation email was initially sent to you), then click on "Lost password" and enter the correct email address.

    - You have made a typing error when entering the email address to which the link to create a password must be sent. Click on "Lost password" and enter the correct email address.

    - You haven't entered the correct email address when creating your account. Please contact the organisation for which you submitted, or you would like to submit, a request and ask them to replace the first email address with the correct email address.

    Tip: If you have clicked more than once on "Lost password", only the last link received will be valid.

  • If you have clicked more than once on "Lost password", only the last link received will be valid.

  • If you use Internet Explorer 7 or 8, please try again with a more recent version (Internet Explorer from the 9th version) or with Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.

  • You can look over your project by :

    - opening the PDF you received in the confirmation of reception email after you submitted your first part.

    - going to "My account / Manage my requests" and by clicking on the link "view" under the first part of your project.

  • Once the person you invited will have completed her part and clicked on "validate and send", you will be immediately notified by email.

  • If you are sure you have the correct address, please check if your cookies are activated in your browser by clicking on this link: https://www.whatismybrowser.com/are-cookies-enabled. If the answer is "yes", you will have to delete the cookies.

    Below is a link where you will find the steps to follow in order to delete the cookies based on the browser you use: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/clear-cookies-installed.html.

    • every 2 minutes

    • every 30 seconds after a data has been entered or a change has been made

    • after having entered a first answer and started replying to the second question

    • when clicking on “previous screen” or “next screen”

    • when clicking on another screen on the menu on the left hand side of the interface