From Bella DePaulo and the Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Foundation for the Empowerment of Single People is delighted to announce the Foundation’s first set of award-winning grant proposals. We received many more worthy proposals than the Foundation could fund, and we were deeply impressed by the wide array of brilliant ideas for doing good in the world for people who are single.
The award winners come from Canada, Scotland, Uganda, and the United States, and proposals were submitted from other countries as well. The variety of applicants was impressive, including scholars from many disciplines, managers and leaders, creative writers, podcasters, screenwriters, multimedia storytellers, and more.
In alphabetical order, our winners are:
- Sylvie Beaudin, screenwriter and author
Sylvie Beaudin is writing a novel, a reversal comedy that opens with a wedding scene in which the bride is enjoying the lavish celebration of her new marital status and pitying her single, childfree cousin. But then the societal script flips and it is the single people who have higher social status. The goal is education through entertainment, including the creation of endearing solo characters with full lives – a representation too often missing from popular culture. Some scenes are based on research, such as studies of discrimination against unpartnered renters.
- Abigail Howkins, filmmaker and developer of film and television talent
Abigail Howkins is writing a screenplay about an adventure motorcyclist who travels, takes risks, detours out of her own story when she falls in love with a fellow adventure motorcyclist, then has an experience that makes her realize, as Howkins expressed it, “that the life she thought she needed someone else to show her was hers to create all along.” Moreover, “rather than present singlehood as a problem to be solved, the film will show a woman actively creating a rich, adventurous and meaningful life which is literally jeopardized by pursuing a romantic relationship.”
- Deogratius Kyanda Kannamwangi (historian) and Alexander Paul Isiko (scholar of religion) of Kyambogo University in Kampala, Uganda
These scholars will organize a 1-day multidisciplinary conference at Kyambogo University (in person and virtual) with the goals of challenging the deficit narratives of single people in Uganda and advancing our understanding of single people by centering African experiences. Panelists will include scholars, single people, and officers of non-governmental organizations whose programs support and empower people who are single.
- Laura Stassi, journalist and podcaster
Laura Stassi will produce a one-hour audio documentary for public radio distribution. It will focus on the growing population of unpartnered Americans, with an emphasis on those who remain single after widowhood or gray divorce. By sifting through research, weaving in her personal experiences and talking with older singles about theirs, the documentary will introduce listeners to the myriad ways older single people are leading fulfilling lives despite societal pressure and prejudice, and what currently partnered people of all ages can learn from them.
- Craig Wynne, scholar of rhetoric and composition
Craig Wynne is writing a book on the idealizing of romantic relationships and the demeaning of singlehood in American cinema. Its purpose is to document the damage done by the unremitting, and largely unrecognized, bias toward coupling in popular culture, and to draw sustained, well-argued attention to the problem and to its implications for single people.
We received many more proposals that would have powerfully advanced the Foundation’s goal of empowering single people, but, to our regret, the Foundation did not have sufficient resources to fund all of them. For decades, massive amounts of funding have been available for studying romantic relationships and promoting marriage, whereas the Foundation for the Empowerment of Single People has few counterparts anywhere in the world. If you can contribute to the Foundation, or if you know anyone else who may be interested, we would be enormously grateful: https://singlesfoundation.org/donate/.
Thank you to everyone who applied and to everyone who is already supporting the Foundation.
The next deadline for applications is March 1, 2027. Please check the Foundation’s website before applying to be sure you are looking at the most up-to-date set of instructions.
