Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions
Grant: Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions
Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Deadline: May 1, 2013.
Description: 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 that are the focus of their projects. Applicants should choose a conservator whose specialty is appropriate for the nature of their collections. Because the organization and the preservation of archival collections must be approached in tandem, an archival consultant should also provide advice about the management and processing needs of such holdings as part of a preservation assessment that includes long-term plans for the arrangement and description of archival collections.
Preservation Assistance Grants may be used for:
- General preservation assessments.
- Consultations with professionals to address a specific preservation issue, need or problem.
- Purchase of storage furniture and preservation supplies.
- Purchase of environmental monitoring equipment for humanities collections.
- Education and training.
Applicants may combine two or more elements of the project types listed above in a single application.
Fit for public broadcasting: Stations that have recordings and collections in need of preservation are a great fit for this program. The humanities collections that are eligible to be preserved with funds from this grant program include recordings of historic broadcasts that many public broadcasting stations own. Collections preserved or organized by this grant must be regularly accessible for research, education or public programming. NEH specifies that sound recordings and moving images are eligible for preservation assistance, but reformatting of collections (e.g., digitizing, photocopying, microfilming or copying to another medium) is not an acceptable use of grant funds.
Eligibility: U.S. nonprofit organizations are eligible, as are state and local governmental agencies and federally recognized Indian tribal governments. Individuals are not eligible to apply. Only one application for a Preservation Assistance Grant may be submitted annually by an institution, although distinct collecting entities of a larger organization may apply in the same year. 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 and make their collections open and available to the public at least 120 days per year.
Anticipated funding: Grants of up to $6,000 will be awarded. All grants are awarded for a period of eighteen months, although a grantee may complete a project in a shorter period of time. Cost sharing is not required in this program. If eligible expenses are more than $6,000, an applicant may cover the difference and show this as cost sharing in the project’s budget.
How to apply: Applications must be submitted via Grants.gov. Online submission requires registration, a process that usually takes three to five business days but can take as long as four weeks. Be sure to visit Grants.gov and begin registering well in advance of the deadline.
Resources:
Program notice
Division of Preservation and Access website
Sample projects
