Grants, Scholarships, Contests

Each year at the annual conference IAATE presents a series of awards recognizing significant achievements by its members in several fields. Members may also apply for grant funding for conservation projects with the grant awards being made at the conference. You can check past Awards & Grant winners here.

Submission Deadlines

Deadline September 15, 2023:
Walter Crawford Memorial Scholarship

Deadline January 8, 2024:
Conservation Grant Application Submission

Deadline January 8, 2024: Education Grant Application Submission

Deadline January 8, 2024: Behavior Showcase Submission

Deadline January 8, 2024:
Photo Contest Submission 

WALTER CRAWFORD MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP 

Have you dreamed of attending our annual conference, but lack the funds to do so? If so, this scholarship might be the answer to your dreams! IAATE will once again award monies to eligible IAATE members to assist in funding attendance of our annual conference. This scholarship fund is limited, it is funded by the proceeds from our conference workshops of the previous year and will be awarded only to applicants who meet eligibility requirements. The recipient of this scholarship will be determined by the IAATE Professional Development Committee. Download the scholarship application form from the link below! 

Deadline for application submission for our 2024 conference is September 15, 2023. 

Please send completed applications to Professional Development Committee Chair, amy.m.fennell@gmail.com. Download the Walt Crawford Scholarship Application Form 

Note: While you must be an IAATE member to apply, there is no minimum membership time requirement. However, preference will be given to applicants who have been a member for more than one year.

EDUCATION GRANT 

IAATE Education Grants are awarded to members to develop and support their programs in achieving their educational goals. The winners will be announced at the Annual Conference Banquet. Attendance at the conference is not a requirement but is encouraged. Supporting materials such as videos and pictures can be included with application.

Download the IAATE_Education_Grant_Application

CONSERVATION GRANT 

IAATE Conservation Grants are open to any individual or organization proposing work that will support the IAATE’s mission. However, projects must be sponsored by, or include a role for, an IAATE member in good standing. Projects being awarded grant funding will be announced at the annual conference Banquet. Attendance at the conference is not a requirement but is encouraged. Supporting materials such as videos and pictures can be included with application.

Download the IAATE_Conservation_Grant_Application

HIGH FLYER AWARD

 This award will be given to the paper that the conference attendees vote as the best. All conference attendees get to vote on their favorite paper; so to have a chance at winning this award all you have to do is present a paper. All presenters for the conference have their papers automatically entered for the High Flyer Award. Note that only papers submitted by the submission deadline are eligible.

BEHAVIOR SHOWCASE

Every year the opening day of IAATE’s annual conference kicks off with a celebration of our members’ training successes with the IAATE Behavior Showcase presentation. This video montage sets the stage for a wonderful conference experience with members sharing and learning from each other.

This year’s showcase is a special one, and something we can ALL consider participating in! We are soliciting only videos of voluntary crate behaviors this year for what we hope will be a “Crate-a-Palooza” showcase featuring many, many members and facilities showing off voluntary crate behaviors with many, many individual birds of all species! Let’s celebrate our individual and collective successes in teaching our avian learners this extremely important foundation behavior for improving care and welfare.

Do you have a training success you would like to share with the attendees of the IAATE annual conference?? Would you like to inspire other facilities to reach new heights in training? Haven’t taught a voluntary crate behavior yet? What are you waiting for? Start today and share your success in our 2024 Behavior Showcase!

Crate-a-Palooza – our 2024 Behavior Showcase – will be shown during the opening of the conference for all attendees. IAATE will be sharing the videos on social media and our website after the conference in hopes of inspiring future trainers by showing just what is possible, with any and every bird of any and every species, so please share materials that are approved by your organization for social media.

Get your cameras out and capture your team’s achievements. The deadline for submission will be January 8, 2024

Please consider the welfare of the bird and the safety of the audience and trainer during the behavior. Please see IAATE Position Statement on best practices in training for reference.

Submission details:

  • Record in landscape orientation rather than portrait.
  • Format video for the web in Mp4 with h.264 compression.
  • Preferably Full HD 1080 (1920×1080), no less than 1280×720
  • If you use music in your video, make sure you are using copyright-free music.
  • Consider using text overlays on your video to describe behaviors or training for the viewers’ experience rather than dialogue.

NAME YOUR FILE with your institution’s name, following this naming convention: institutionname_behaviorname_IAATE2021.mp4
No spaces or hyphens in filename
Example: CascadesRaptorCenter_CrateLoad_IAATE2020.mp4
We look forward to showcasing and celebrating some of the inspirational and creative accomplishments of our members during the conference.

UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO FILE to this Dropbox and follow submission instructions: BEHAVIOR SHOWCASE VIDEOS 

PHOTO CONTEST

Enter your photos for a chance win prizes! $250 in Amazon.com gift certificates were awarded last year! And see your winning photos in the IAATE Flyer!

Categories:
Portraits of Birds
Action: Flying, jumping, running, bathing etc.
People and Birds: Birds and trainers in shows, birds and audience members, funny moments with birds, etc. 

Left and right 2023 Photo Contest winner: Kea (Nestor notabilis) by Cassie Crawford – and Spring 2023 Flyer cover.

Contest Rules:

  • 2024 Entry Deadline: All entries must be submitted by January 8, 2024 Entries are pre-judged before the conference and presented in a slide show at the banquet. The entry deadline is not flexible, so please plan ahead.
  • Contest open to IAATE member photographers only! You must take your own photos to enter. No 2nd party non-member photos please. Selfies are ok.
  • AMATEUR photographers only (a professional photographer is defined as making 40% or more of their annual salary from selling photos).
  • Entries must be sent emailed as jpegs, send via file sharing or on a USB stick. Please email Kim Caldwell to determine what file sharing method is compatible. The USB stick will only be returned in a self-addressed stamped envelope. Please submit photos of 300dpi or better. You may send images via email as long as they are full size images of 1-3MBs. If you send compressed images by email, the quality may be compromised. We really want these photos to look good in print, so the higher quality is important. Sending photos individually is fine. A return email will be sent to confirm receipt of the photos. If you do not receive a confirmation email, I did not receive the photos.
  • No more than 10 entries per individual.
  • Photographer grants IAATE permission to use the photos in any IAATE publication, including the IAATE web site. All other rights retained by Photographer.
  • Please clean up your photo entries if scanned. Cropping is ok. No modifications will be made to photos for judging once received. Please do not send images larger than 5MB (closed file size). 1-3MB is sufficient.
  • Please use the species common name and your own name as the file name: e. Goldeneagle.KimCaldwell.jpg, and Blackcrownedcrane.HelenDishaw.jpg. This will help IAATE with the filing system to access photos in the future for our publications.

All entries must be accompanied by:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Phone number
  • Category of each entry

Mail entries to:

Kim Caldwell
20110 3rd Place
Escondido, CA 92029

or email to Kim Caldwell -KBCaldwell@cox.net