National Endowment for the Humanities: Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions

Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions — such as libraries, museums, historical societies, archival repositories, cultural organizations, town and county records offices, and colleges and universities — improve their ability to preserve and care for their significant humanities collections. These may include special collections of books and journals, archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, moving images, sound recordings, architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art objects, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, furniture, historical objects, and digital materials.

Applicants must draw on the knowledge of consultants whose preservation skills and experience are related to the types of collections and the nature of the activities on which their projects focus. Within the conservation field, for example, conservators usually specialize in the care of specific types of collections, such as objects, paper, or paintings. Applicants should therefore choose a conservator whose specialty is appropriate for the nature of their collections. Similarly, when assessing the preservation needs of library, museum, or archival holdings, applicants must seek a consultant specifically knowledgeable about the preservation of these types of institutions.

Amount: Generally, grants of up to $6,000 are available. Applicants may request up to an additional $1,000 to cover costs associated with having an advanced student or recent graduate from a preservation program assist the project consultant. The maximum award for such applications is $7,000. Applicants in federally designated disaster areas may request up to $10,000 to cover costs associated with disaster response, recovery, and remediation.

Eligibility: Tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations; state and local governmental agencies; and federally recognized Indian tribal governments. Applicants must demonstrate that they:

• Care for and have custody of the humanities collections that are the focus of the application
• Have at least one staff member or the full-time equivalent, whether paid or unpaid
• Make their collections open and available for the purpose of education, research, and/or public programming

The program encourages applications from the following kinds of institutions with significant humanities collections:

• Small and mid-sized institutions that have never received an NEH grant
• Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and tribal colleges and universities
• Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations

Link: https://www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/preservation-assistance-grants-smaller-institutions

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