Deadline: 11 May 2020
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is seeking applications for the NEH CARES: Cultural Organizations program.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act recognizes that the nonprofit humanities sector is an essential component of America’s economic and civic life. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has received supplemental funding to provide emergency relief to institutions and organizations working in the humanities that have been affected by the coronavirus.
The purpose of this emergency relief program is to assist institutions and organizations working in the humanities that have been affected by the coronavirus. In keeping with Congress’s intent in enacting the CARES Act, proposals for shortterm activities should emphasize retaining or hiring humanities staff.
Funds are available to support a range of activities over a six and a half-month period of performance. While not comprehensive, the following examples are provided to illustrate the types of activities that could be proposed in this program:
- A university requests support to assist adjunct or contingent faculty members and staff converting to online teaching.
- A museum requests support to train staff to engage with visitors virtually, including developing online virtual tours or transcribing digital collections to make the collections more broadly available to the general public.
- A historic site that is temporarily closed hires staff to provide exhibition maintenance, and to sanitize spaces so that, when social distancing ends, the site is ready to welcome visitors safely.
- A scholarly society requests support to continue editing its journal, an activity that would normally be supported by revenue from an annual conference that was cancelled due to the pandemic.
- An independent research institution requests support to continue serving the scholarly community by offering online professional development or organizing online lectures at a time when membership revenue has decreased due to the coronavirus.
- An archive requests support for staff who would have been furloughed to prepare or initiate their disaster plans, online archives, and/or procedures for re-opening after forced closure.
- A tribal community requests support to continue a program creating, preserving, and making available oral history interviews.
- A liberal arts college requests support for staff to develop documentation and outreach plans to broaden the use of open-access digital resources in research and teaching.
- An institution working on humanities research requiring technical equipment that cannot be accessed remotely requests support for staff to refocus on data cleaning and software documentation.
- A public radio station requests support for the development of a podcast to contextualize the global impact of the coronavirus in relation to historical events such as plagues, natural disasters, and world wars that significantly altered human society.
Allowable costs include, but are not limited to:
- Personnel costs (salaries and fringe benefits) for individuals employed by the applicant and dedicated to the proposed activities.
- Fees for humanities scholars retained as consultants and contractors.
- Supplies and materials necessary to carry out the proposed activities.
- Equipment necessary to carry out the proposed activities (not to exceed 20 percent to the total funds requested).
- General operating support (typically recovered through indirect costs).
Funding Information
- Up to $35,000,000 is expected to be available to fund 300-600 recipients.
- Applicant organizations may apply for an amount based on the average size of their total annual operating costs for the three most recently completed fiscal years. Institutions of higher education should apply for an amount based on the three-year average total operating costs of the component(s) for which they are applying (not the college/university as a whole).
- Small organizations with annual operating costs less than or equal to $200,000 may request up to $30,000.
- Mid-size organizations with annual operating costs greater than $200,000 and less than or equal to $3,000,000 may request up to 15 percent of their annual operating costs.
- Large organizations with annual operating costs greater than $3,000,000 may request up to $300,000.
Duration
The period of performance may begin as early as June 15, 2020 and must end on or before December 31, 2020.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants include U.S. nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, public and 501(c)(3) accredited institutions of higher education, state and local governmental agencies, and federally recognized Native American tribal governments.
- The 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils are not eligible to apply under this announcement. State and jurisdictional humanities councils received CARES Act funds directly as a supplement to their general operating support grants.
- Individuals, foreign and for-profit entities are not eligible to apply.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=326458