Is there funding for non-research related projects?
Sure: 


The DFG in Germany awards grants for projects to organize digital libraries.
The ministry of education and research in Germany funds large projects on higher education (one of them is the Qualitätspakt Lehre - you hire people (often at the PhD or postdoc level) to organize or develop new courses, course concepts or course material).
There are grants for projects on history of science.
Universities offer reduction of teaching load or sabbaticals for writing books (which is really some kind of a grant, you get paid with time not money).
In books you often see acknowledgements for some funding.


Granted, in many of these grants the money or time does not go to PhD students or postdocs but at least the first three things fit the bill.

Note however, that as soon there is no research involved, you can not get a research degree for this work. So these kind of positions are not attractive to some students.