Details of grant application process and eligibility requirements are available on the Louisville Institute website, http://www.louisville-institute.org/. By way of summary, here are some core program facts:

• Applicants must be regularly employed in a recognized religious leadership position. Applicants may be ordained or lay, and may or may not have a formal theological degree. Eligible positions include pastors and other parish ministers, chaplains, faith-based community agency leaders, and church judicatory officials. 
• Awardees will ordinarily have been in their current place of ministry at least five years, and will plan on staying in their current place for at least a year beyond their sabbatical. They will be at least five years away from retirement. Exceptions are possible, especially in church polities built on an itinerancy model.
• Awards are made for either eight- or twelve-week sabbaticals. Sabbaticals are taken in a continuous single period. Applicants choose whether to apply for an eight-week sabbatical, with a $10,000 award, or for a twelve-week sabbatical, which bears a $15,000 award. The size of award request has no bearing on the chances of receiving an award.
• Applications are due no later than September 1, 2009. Award announcements will be made by December 1, and sabbaticals must be taken between March 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011.
• For study grants, rules are somewhat different; please see our website for that program�s eligibility and project guidelines.