National Endowment for the Humanities
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES: The endowment’s grant-making operations are conducted through four divisions and three offices. Through grants to educational institutions and opportunities for teachers, the Division of Education Programs is designed to strengthen sustained, thoughtful study of the humanities at all levels of education. Through fellowships to individual scholars and support of collaborative projects, the Division of Research Programs promotes significant original research in the humanities. The Division of Public Programs supports a wide range of public humanities programs that reach large and diverse public audiences through a variety of program formats, including interpretive exhibitions, radio and television broadcasts, lectures, symposia, interpretive multimedia projects, printed materials, and reading and discussion programs. The Division of Preservation and Access makes grants for projects that will create, preserve, and increase the availability of resources important for research, education, and public programming in the humanities. The Office of Federal/State Partnership makes grants to citizens’ committees in each state to provide support for local humanities projects. Nonprofit institutions interested in developing new sources of long-term support for humanities programs may seek assistance from the Office of Challenge Grants. The Office of Digital Humanities encourages and supports projects that use or study the impact of digital technology on education, preservation, public programming, and research in the humanities.
General eligibility: The endowment supports the work of individual scholars and not-for-profit institutions and organizations engaged in projects involving the humanities. Those institutions include universities; four-year colleges; junior and community colleges; elementary and secondary schools; educational, cultural, professional, and community groups; museums and historical organizations; libraries; public agencies; and public radio and television stations. The endowment welcomes applications for support from all such institutions and groups, from individual US scholars with or without academic affiliation, and from foreign nationals who have been living in the US or its territories for at least three years at the time of application. Fields of support: According to the act that established the endowment, the humanities include, but are not limited to, the following fields: history, philosophy, language, linguistics, literature, archaeology, jurisprudence, history and criticism of the arts, ethics, comparative religion, and those aspects of the social sciences employing historical or philosophical approaches. This last category includes cultural anthropology, sociology, political theory, and international relations. Gifts-and-matching grants: An applicant may sometimes be offered a “gifts-and-matching” grant as a supplement to an outright grant or as the sole form of endowment support. When the endowment offers to support a project through one of these grants, it is up to the grantee to raise gifts from outside his or her own organization to a level approved by the endowment. The endowment then matches this money with federal funds, but the total sum that can be federally matched is limited by the annual congressional appropriations for that purpose. Challenge grants: These grants offer one federal dollar for every three raised from nonfederal sources. Challenge grants may be used to establish or enhance endowments and funds may also be used for one-time capital expenditures (such as construction and renovation, purchase of equipment, and acquisitions) that bring long-term benefits to the institution and to the humanities more broadly. Deadlines: Those interested in applying for a grant in the humanities or learning about NEH program deadlines should visit http://www.neh.gov for information and guidelines related to grant programs offered by the endowment. For information about grants in the Research and Development program, visit https://www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/research-and-development. To speak with someone directly, call 202 606-8446. (Hearing-impaired persons should call 202 606-8282.) E-mail inquiries should be sent to info@neh.gov.
For state humanities council deadlines, write or call NEH for the address of the state humanities council office in your state.