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The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access is accepting applications for the Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program. These 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.

Allowable activities include:

  • general preservation assessments
  • consultations with preservation professionals
  • purchase of storage furniture and preservation supplies
  • purchase of environmental monitoring equipment

Institutions in federally declared disaster areas may request funding for the following disaster-related activities: 

  • disaster response, recovery, and mitigation
  • conservation treatment
  • temporary storage and relocation
  • purchase of cleaning supplies and equipment, which may include vacuums, dehumidifiers, and other remediation supplies
  • when appropriate, the reformatting of collections as a preservation methodology

The program encourages applications from small and mid-sized institutions that have never received an NEH grant; community colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Tribal Colleges and Universities; and Native American tribes and Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian organizations with significant humanities collections. Furthermore, organizations or collections that represent the contributions of under-represented communities are highly encouraged.

NEH will host a pre-application webinar for prospective applicants on November 29, 2021, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Applications are due  January 13, 2022. More information about the program can be found on the NEH website.

In 2018, The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas received an NEH Preservation Assistance Grant to hire a consultant and develop a digital collections preservation plan.