Deadline: 13-Dec-21
The U.S. Embassy in Chisinau is pleased to announce a call for proposals for the 2022 Grants Competition of the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP).
The U.S. Ambassadors Fund was established by the U.S. Congress in 2001 to help countries preserve their cultural heritage and to demonstrate U.S. respect for different cultures around the world. AFCP projects strengthen civil society, encourage good governance, and promote political and economic stability around the world.
The AFCP has provided over 1.5 million dollars in grants to fund projects throughout Moldova over the last two decades. These grants have helped to record traditional forms of Moldovan music and dance, build a Visitors Center and preserve the medieval bath complex in Orhei Vechi, preserve the Treasury Room Objects at the National History Museum of Moldova, preserve old and rare books at the National Library of Moldova, preserve Gagauz folklore, customs and rituals, and currently is helping to preserve the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Church in Causeni.
Funding Areas
The AFCP Grants Program supports the preservation of archaeological sites, historic buildings and monuments, museum collections, and forms of traditional cultural expression, such as indigenous languages and crafts. Appropriate project activities may include:
- Anastylosis (reassembling a site from its original parts);
- Conservation (addressing damage or deterioration to an object or site);
- Consolidation (connecting or reconnecting elements of an object or site);
- Documentation (recording in analog or digital format the condition and salient features of an object, site, or tradition);
- Inventory (listing of objects, sites, or traditions by location, feature, age, or other unifying characteristic or state);
- Preventive Conservation (addressing conditions that threaten or damage a site, object, collection, or tradition);
- Restoration (replacing missing elements to recreate the original appearance of an object or site, usually appropriate only with fine arts, decorative arts, and historic buildings);
- Stabilization (reducing the physical disturbance of an object or site).
Funding Priorities
In 2022, the U.S. Embassy will give preference to projects that do one or more of the following:
- Directly support U.S. treaty or bilateral agreement obligations;
- Support disaster risk reduction for cultural heritage in disaster-prone areas; cultural heritage recovery;
- Support conflict resolution and help communities bridge differences.
Funding Information
The minimum amount of an award is $10,000, and the maximum is $500,000.
Ineligible Activities and Unallowable Costs
The U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation does NOT support the following:
- Preservation or purchase of privately or commercially owned cultural objects, collections, or real property, including those whose transfer from private or commercial to public ownership is envisioned, planned, or in process but not complete at the time of proposal submission;
- Preservation of natural heritage (physical, biological, and geological formations, paleontological collections, habitats of threatened species of animals and plants, fossils, etc.);
- Preservation of hominid or human remains;
- Preservation of news media (newspapers, newsreels, radio and TV programs, etc.);
- Preservation of published materials available elsewhere (books, periodicals, etc.);
- Development of curricula or educational materials for classroom use;
- Archaeological excavations or surveys for research purposes;
- Historical research, except in cases where the research is justifiable and integral to the success of the proposed project;
- Acquisition or creation of new exhibits or collections for new or existing museums;
- Construction of new buildings, building additions, or permanent coverings (over archaeological sites, for example);
- Commissions of new works of art or architecture for commemorative or economic development purposes;
- Creation of new or modern adaptation of existing traditional dances, songs, chants, musical compositions, plays, or other performances;
- Creation of replicas or re-creation of cultural objects or sites that no longer exist;
- Relocation of cultural sites from one physical location to another;
- Removal of cultural objects or elements of cultural sites from the country for any reason;
- Digitization of cultural objects or collections, unless part of a larger, clearly defined conservation effort;
- Conservation plans or other studies, unless they are one component of a larger project to implement the results of those studies;
- Cash reserves, endowments or revolving funds (funds must be expended within the grant period (up to five years) and may not be used to create an endowment or revolving fund);
- Costs of fundraising campaigns;
- Contingency, unforeseen, or miscellaneous costs or fees;
- Costs of work performed prior to announcement of the award;
- International travel, except in cases where travel is justifiable and integral to the success of the proposed project;
- Individual projects costing less than $10,000 or more than $500,000;
- Independent U.S. projects overseas.
For more information, visit https://md.usembassy.gov/u-s-ambassadors-fund-for-cultural-preservation-2022-grants-competition/