The Stray Birds’ forthcoming full-length album, “Best Medicine,” which led to a record deal with Yep Roc Records, comes out Oct. 21, funded in part by a Passim Iguana grant.

Musicians with projects to pay for have through Wednesday to get their bids in for Passim’s Iguana Music Fund.

The awards, to be announced in December, give between $500 and $2,000 to New England-affiliated artists – even if that affiliation is just through a history of touring locally – for specific, career-building projects or those that provide community service through music.

There’s $45,000 at stake, which last year was split between 26 musicians chosen out of 300 applicants – around the cap of applicants over the past couple of years and right were the organization wants it to be, said Passim’s managing director, Matt Smith. The program was founded in 2008, inspired by an anonymous donor.

This year’s applicants are hardly lagging, but “we always push to get the word out” to get the widest, best array of projects to fund, publicist Adam Klein said.

The deadline is midnight, and artists haven been known use every second.

“Oh, always,” Smith said. “It’s like students doing homework – you don’t do it ahead of time.”

But this can be extraordinarily rewarding homework, and Smith said he’s always impressed to be reminded at the projects the Iguana Fund has helped make real.

While some grants are on a small, personal scale – for instance, last year dobro player Abby Gardner was able to upgrade her instrument and Will Dailey expanded his home studio – community outreach efforts also benefit. Meena Malick won grant money to buy sound equipment for the Voci Angelica Trio to use in its school outreach program through Young Audiences of Massachusetts; Nani Agbeli, a lecturer in music at Tufts University, was to offer his African Drum and Dance Workshops for Cambridge area preteens; and Todd Mack will use the grant to fund a program in which high school students work with industry professionals to write a song together, record it, perform it and make a video. (A complete rundown of winners from the last round of grants is here.)

Musicians can click here to apply for a grant.