Indiana educators can still apply for Lilly renewal grants up to $15,000

Indiana educators have a narrowing window to apply for one of the state’s more unusual teacher-facing grants: Lilly Endowment’s 2027 Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program says proposals are due by 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, and the program expects to award about 150 grants of up to $15,000 each. The money is not for classroom supplies, a school initiative, or a standard professional-development trip. It is for educator-designed projects focused on personal renewal that Lilly says can later deepen teachers’ and school leaders’ work with students.

That framing is what makes the opportunity both attractive and easy to misread. Eligible applicants include full-time Indiana K-12 classroom teachers, principals and assistant principals, librarians and media specialists, school counselors and psychologists, school social workers, speech-language pathologists, and instructional coaches who have daily interaction with students. Applicants must have at least three cumulative years in one or more of those roles since at least fall 2023 and must hold either a valid Indiana educator license or an appropriate four-year bachelor’s degree. The fellowship period lasts 18 months, and Lilly says it expects to announce decisions by Jan. 22, 2027. (lillyendowment.org)

For Indiana schools trying to hold onto staff, the grant lands at a moment when teacher well-being remains a live issue. A 2024 RAND survey found teachers were about twice as likely as similar working adults to report frequent job-related stress or burnout, and they reported working more hours for lower average base pay. Lilly’s fellowship does not solve those structural problems, but it does offer something educators rarely get from grant programs: funded time to step outside the job without having to disguise that time as a curriculum purchase or compliance training. (rand.org)

Who can apply, and who is out

The geography is strict. This is for educators working in Indiana’s traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools. Lilly’s 2027 FAQ also makes two points that matter for edge cases: pre-K educators are not eligible, but educators employed by Indiana virtual schools may be eligible if they meet the rest of the criteria. The FAQ also says “full-time” means 30 or more hours a week for this program. (lillyendowment.org)

The experience rule is broader than some educators may assume. Lilly says applicants can combine years across eligible roles, so someone who spent one year as a classroom teacher and two as a media specialist can qualify. That matters for staff whose job titles have shifted in recent years, especially instructional coaches or administrators who moved out of classroom teaching but still work directly with students. The FAQ also says educators can receive up to two Teacher Creativity fellowships over a career; past recipients remain eligible for the 2027 round if they meet the program rules and received their first award in 2019 or earlier. (lillyendowment.org)

One caution for principals and district leaders: this is not a school-improvement grant in disguise. Lilly’s public materials repeatedly describe the fellowship as support for meaningful renewal of the individual applicant. That means a strong application is less about proving a district initiative and more about showing why a particular experience would restore energy, curiosity, or perspective for one educator in a way that eventually benefits students. (lillyendowment.org)

What Lilly appears to mean by “renewal”

The Endowment is unusually explicit about what it does not want. In the request for proposals, it says fellowship projects are “not intended to be typical vacations” and says competitive proposals should be intellectually enriching, personally renewing, well organized, and backed by a realistic timeline and budget. Lilly adds that while there is no minimum project length, proposals involving less than “several weeks’ time (or more)” need to explain clearly how a shorter plan would still produce meaningful renewal. (lillyendowment.org)

That language creates a real trade-off for applicants. On one hand, the program is broader than traditional PD: Lilly’s sample materials include ideas as varied as earning a single-engine pilot certification, undertaking meditation and hiking retreats, or pursuing creative and cultural projects. Recent fellows’ projects have ranged from photographing dark skies in national parks to exploring culinary traditions in Europe and retracing the worlds of Impressionist artists. On the other hand, the flexibility means applicants have to do more narrative work themselves. A proposal built around “I need a break” is likely too thin; a proposal that shows planning, challenge, reflection, and a credible connection back to the educator’s work is much closer to what Lilly describes. (lillyendowment.org)

The budget expectations point in the same direction. Lilly’s FAQ says applicants should show the full cost of the proposed renewal project even if they plan to supplement the grant with other resources, and its sample timeline-and-budget document stresses that there is no required format but that applicants should build specific, realistic plans in whole-dollar amounts. The 18-month grant period also gives educators room to plan around the school calendar; one official sample timeline explicitly builds in a backup plan that would move travel from summer 2027 to summer 2028 if reservations fall through. (lillyendowment.org)

Worth the effort — but only if applicants start with the right idea

For educators deciding whether this is worth a last-minute push, the short answer is yes — if they already have the seed of a renewal plan and can turn it into a coherent proposal quickly. Lilly’s main page says applicants must submit a proposal and required materials through the online form, and it directs them to the request for proposals, FAQ, project examples, and budget/timeline samples. Once materials are submitted, the Endowment says applicants should receive a confirmation email; if they do not, they are told to follow up directly. (lillyendowment.org)

But the runway is short in another sense, too: Lilly’s four public information sessions for this cycle were scheduled for April 14, May 7, Aug. 6, and Aug. 11, meaning the webinar window has already passed. At this point, the practical next step is to work from the published documents and email Lilly with unanswered questions rather than wait for another overview session. (lillyendowment.org)

There is one small wrinkle in the public materials. Lilly’s main program page, request for proposals, newsletter copy, and poster all say the Endowment expects to award about 150 grants in 2027, but some of the publicity toolkit’s prewritten social-media posts still refer to 125 grants. The 150 figure appears to be the controlling number because it is repeated across the application page and RFP, and it would also fit the program’s recent expansion: Lilly’s older RFPs show the fellowship growing from about 100 awards of up to $12,000 in 2022 and 2023 to 125 awards of up to $15,000 in 2025 and 2026, before this year’s move to about 150 awards. (lillyendowment.org)

That expansion is one reason the opportunity stands out. Since the program began in 1987, Lilly says it has awarded more than 3,900 grants to Indiana educators, making this less a one-off philanthropic experiment than a long-running part of the state’s education landscape. What remains to be seen over the next two weeks is whether eligible educators — and the school leaders who can help them carve out time to apply — treat the fellowship as what it is: not a perk, not a classroom mini-grant, but a rare chance to fund the kind of serious renewal many educators say they do not have room to pursue on their own. (lillyendowment.org)