Deadline: 5-Jan-23
The Cultural Heritage Center (“the Center”) in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) is pleased to announce the start of the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) 2022 Grants Program.
Sites and Objects Having a Religious Connection: The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution permits the government to include religious objects and sites within an aid program under certain conditions. For example, an item with a religious connection (including a place of worship) may be the subject of a cultural preservation grant if the item derives its primary significance and is nominated solely based on architectural, artistic, historical, or other cultural (not religious) criteria.
Funding Priorities
- AFCP projects promote specific U.S. policy goals. The Center will give preference to projects that do at least one or more of the following:
- Directly support U.S. treaty or bilateral agreement obligations;
- Directly support U.S. policies, strategies, and objectives in Guatemala;
- Support disaster risk reduction for cultural heritage in disaster-prone areas or post-disaster cultural heritage recovery;
- Support conflict resolution and help communities bridge differences;
- Partner, connect with, or feed into other diplomacy programs of the U.S. Mission in Guatemala.
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 Information
- The Center is combining the small and large grant programs into a single program. Pending availability of funds, awards will range from $10,000 to $500,000.
Ineligible Activities and Unallowable Costs
- AFCP does not support the following activities or costs, and the Center will deem applications involving any of these activities or costs automatically ineligible:
- 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 application;
- 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 exploratory 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, objects, 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 the modern adaptation of existing traditional dances, songs, chants, musical compositions, plays, or other performances;
- Creation of replicas or conjectural reconstructions 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, documentation, or public diplomacy 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 award period [up to five years] and may not be used to create an endowment or revolving fund);
- Costs of fund-raising campaigns;
- Contingency, unforeseen, or miscellaneous costs or fees;
- Costs of work performed prior to announcement of the award unless allowable per 2 CFR 200.458 and approved by the Grants Officer;
- International travel, except in cases where travel is justifiable and integral to the success of the proposed project or to provide project leaders with learning and exchange opportunities with cultural heritage experts;
- Individual projects costing less than USD $10,000 or more than USD $500,000;
- Independent U.S. projects overseas.
Eligible Project Implementers
- The Center defines “eligible project implementers” as reputable and accountable non-commercial entities that can demonstrate they have the requisite capacity to manage projects to preserve cultural heritage.
- Eligible implementers may include non-governmental organizations, museums, educational institutions, or similar institutions and organizations, including U.S.-based educational institutions and organizations subject to Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code.
- The AFCP will not award grants to individuals, commercial entities, or past award recipients that have not fulfilled the objectives or reporting requirements of previous awards.
For more information, visit AFCP.
