NEH Grant Programs
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: PICTURING AMERICA SCHOOL COLLABORATION PROJECTS Receipt Deadline: October 1, 2008 (for projects beginning April 2009)
Advice for Applicants to Upcoming NEH Grant Competitions
Some applicants for NEH grants report that they have recently had difficulty submitting their applications through Grants.gov; they found that the system has periodically been slow and unresponsive. This problem exists because Grants.gov—the system used by applicants to the grant programs of most federal government agencies—has recently had to deal with an unusually high volume of applications. The system has therefore been overloaded. Unfortunately, the problem is expected to continue at least through mid-summer, when system upgrades are scheduled to be installed.
In response to this problem, NEH offers the following advice to prospective applicants. We strongly urge you not to submit your application on the day of the deadline, but instead to submit your application early. If applications are submitted over a period of time, the load of applications should be more manageable for Grants.gov. Applying early will also give you a margin for error, should you need help from Grants.gov to resolve a technical problem when you attempt to submit your application. If possible, you should also plan to submit your application outside of normal business hours on the East Coast. Grants.gov tends to work more smoothly in the early morning, in the evening, and especially on weekends.
Successfully receiving your application is very important to us, so we hope that this advice will be helpful to you. And if you continue to have problems with Grants.gov, please contact NEH division or office staff, using the contact information provided in the program guidelines. We apologize for any inconvenience that you may encounter in submitting your application.
To check on the current status of Grants.gov, please consult the Grants.gov blog.
Date posted: May 27, 2009
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 45.163
Draft Proposals (optional):
Applicants may obtain NEH staff comments on draft proposals submitted no later than August 26, 2009.
Questions?
Contact Rasmi Simhan of NEH’s Division of Education Programs at 202-606-8500 and education@neh.gov. Hearing-impaired applicants can contact NEH via TDD at 1-866-372-2930.
Grant Program Description
Building on the national distribution of Picturing America, the National Endowment for the Humanities invites proposals for local and regional projects that foster collaboration between K-12 educators and humanities scholars to encourage engagement with the rich resources of American art to tell America’s story. The Picturing America School Collaboration Projects grant opportunity is designed to help teachers and librarians whose schools display the Picturing America images form connections with courses in the core curriculum. These projects will be grounded in the great works of art included in Picturing America, which is part of the Endowment’s We the People program. Information aboutPicturing America, including the Picturing America Teachers Resource Book, can be found by visiting the Picturing America Web site.
The images in Picturing America reflect a variety of media spanning several centuries, ranging from the work of early American Indian artists to painters such as Mary Cassatt and Jacob Lawrence, from photographers such as Dorothea Lange to architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright. These images will help students better understand America’s diverse people and places and connect them to our nation’s travails and triumphs. This history is reflected in the themes of Picturing America: Leadership, Freedom and Equality, Democracy, Courage, Landscape, and Creativity and Ingenuity.
Goals of the Picturing America School Collaboration Projects grants are:
  • to strengthen understanding of the connections between great works of American art and significant events, themes, and topics in the American experience;
  • to encourage local and regional collaboration between K-12 educators and humanities experts who can bring appropriate knowledge to the integration of American artworks in core subjects;
  • to foster discussion of how to use the Picturing America images among K-12 educators within a locality or region; and
  • to provide access to rich scholarly resources and primary materials that support teaching.
In order to provide a forum for exploring and deepening students’ understanding of art, American history, government, social studies, literature, language arts, civics, and other core subjects, funded projects should
  • support one or more conferences of one or two days each;
  • accommodate at each conference twenty-four to one hundred (or more) participants, all of whom would have access to the Picturing America portfolio; and
  • provide opportunities for participants to engage with scholars, museum and library professionals, and other experts.
Successful proposals for local and regional projects will present a conference schedule of plenary and concurrent sessions in engaging formats that provide opportunities for participants to
  • observe or demonstrate models for teaching American art, history, and culture with the Picturing America portfolio and accompanying Teachers Resource Book; and
  • explore the curricular value of Picturing America for core subjects (for example, using images in the teaching of history or literature as a powerful investigative tool, a stimulus to Socratic inquiry, or a catalyst to improve student writing)
Successful applicants will provide plans for post-conference support for participants. Some examples of post-conference activities include listservs, e-newsletters, mentoring, and Web sites.
Conference organizers will invite applications from local or regional Picturing America recipients and make selections according to criteria that they establish. Proposals to provide opportunities for teachers with limited access to professional development in the humanities are encouraged. These conferences may include public school teachers, teachers at charter schools, members of home school consortia, and faculty from independent and religious schools.
Projects must have a plan for evaluation that includes, but need not be limited to, an on-site evaluation by participants to be administered before the close of the conference.
Funds may be used to pay for consulting scholars, books and other materials, logistical support, and appropriate released time for project staff.
Types of projects not supported
Picturing America School Collaboration Projects grants do not support
  • empirical social scientific research;
  • specific policy studies;
  • educational or technical impact assessments;
  • work undertaken in the pursuit of an academic degree;
  • the preparation or publication of textbooks;
  • projects that focus on pedagogical theory, research on educational methods, tests, or measurements;
  • cognitive psychology;
  • projects that seek to promote a particular political, philosophical, religious, or ideological point of view; or
  • projects that advocate a particular program of social action.
Providing Access to Grant Products
As a taxpayer-supported federal agency, NEH endeavors to make the products of its awards available to the broadest possible audience. Our goal is for scholars, educators, students, and the American public to have ready and easy access to the wide range of NEH award products. For the Picturing America School Collaboration program, such products may include websites and other digital resources. For projects that lead to the development of Web sites, all other considerations being equal, NEH gives preference to those that provide free access to the public. Detailed guidance on access and dissemination matters can be found below.
III. Award Information
Picturing America School Collaboration Projects can receive up to $75,000 in outright funds for projects involving one or more conferences. The grant period will be twelve months.
When two or more institutions or organizations collaborate on an application, one of them must serve as the lead applicant and administer the project on behalf of all participating units.
Cost Sharing
Cost sharing is not required.
Eligibility
Any U.S. nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status is eligible, as are state and local governmental agencies and tribal governments. Grants are not awarded to individuals.
NEH generally does not award grants to other federal entities or to applicants whose projects are so closely intertwined with a federal entity that the project takes on characteristics of the federal entity’s own authorized activities. This does not preclude applicants from using grant funds from, or sites and materials controlled by, other federal entities in their projects.
Ineligible applications will not be reviewed.
Application and Submission Information

How to Prepare your Application
Application Advice and Proposal Drafts:
Prior to submitting a proposal, applicants are encouraged to contact program officers who can offer advice about preparing the proposal, supply samples of funded applications, and review draft proposals. These comments are not part of the formal review process and have no bearing on the final outcome of the proposal, but previous applicants have found them helpful in strengthening their applications. Program staff recommends that draft proposals be submitted six weeks before the deadline. Time constraints may prevent staff from reviewing draft proposals submitted after that date. Draft narratives must be submitted by e-mail attachment to education@neh.gov.
You will prepare your application for submission via Grants.gov just as you would a paper application. Your application should consist of the following parts.
  1. Table of contents
    List all parts of the application and, beginning with the summary, number all pages consecutively.
  2. Summary
    Provide a one-page, single-spaced summary of the narrative.
  3. Narrative description
    Limit the narrative to twelve double-spaced pages with one-inch margins and 12-point font. Use appendices to provide supplementary material.
    Provide a detailed description of the project, consisting of the following sections:
    • Intellectual rationale
      Explain the significance of the project’s use of Picturing America materials. Place the project in its scholarly and educational context, and identify the intended impact on educators and their students.
    • Content of the project
      Explain the content and structure of the conferences to be offered and how they will encourage educators to incorporate Picturing America images into the school curriculum. Describe conference sessions, including presentation and discussion topics, and what will be expected of participants. In an appendix, provide a detailed work plan.
    • Project faculty and staff
      Identify key resource personnel for the conferences and follow-up activities. Describe the qualifications and responsibilities of the principal scholars, museum and library professionals, keynote speaker(s), and support staff, and the role that each member of the project team will have in ensuring successful achievement of project goals. Enumeration of personnel should be supported in an appendix by letters of commitment and brief résumés or biographies (of one or two pages). The persons bearing primary intellectual responsibility for the grant activities (i.e., the project directors) should submit full résumés in an appendix.
    • Institutional context
      Briefly describe how the resources (e.g., relevant programs and assets, hosting facilities, options for meals, capacities for outreach) of the participating institution(s) support the project. Applicants should describe the ways in which the conference site will enhance the program, including any plans to take advantage of local collections, architectural heritage, or museum resources as a means of encouraging educators to use and interpret art in the community.
    • Eligibility and selection of participants
      NEH will help grant winners identify area schools that have already received the Picturing America images. Include information on how eligible participants will be recruited and selected.
    • Professional development of participants
      Describe how the project will help teachers integrate Picturing America into their core subjects. Provide information, if applicable, about the potential for conveying professional development credit equivalency for teachers interested in obtaining such credit from their school district or state.
    • Dissemination and evaluation
      Describe post-conference efforts to extend the community of inquiry by dissemination of project materials and activities. Applicants will provide a plan for sharing conference resources with the targeted region or school district(s).
      Describe how the project will be evaluated. The evaluation plan should include, but need not be limited to, a participant survey to be administered at the close of the conference. Directors should conduct their own assessment of project accomplishments without the involvement of an outside evaluator.
      All other considerations being equal, NEH will give preference to projects that provide free, online access to materials produced with grant funds.
  4. Budget
    Provide a budget. A sample budget is available for guidance. All of the items listed must be reasonable, necessary to accomplish project objectives, allowable in terms of the applicable federal cost principles, auditable, and incurred during the grant period. Charges to the project for items such as salaries, fringe benefits, travel, and contractual services must conform to the written policies and established practices of the applicant organization. When indirect costs are charged to the project, care should be taken that expenses included in the organization’s indirect-cost pool are not charged to the project as direct costs.
    Review the following budget instructions in preparing your budget. If you wish, you may attach separate pages with notes to explain any of the budget items in more detail.
    1. Participant stipends
      Stipends for conference participants should be listed here. They should be commensurate with the time commitment expected of the participants and should not exceed $300. (At the discretion of the applicant institution, college or university credit may be awarded to participants who seek it. If any filing fee or tuition is charged, it should be charged directly to those participants wishing to receive credit and should be fixed at the lowest possible rate. Such fees may not be deducted from a participant’s stipend.)
    2. Operating costs
      Item 1: Salaries and wages
      Include all project personnel except consultants who are not employees of the applicant institution. NEH funds may not be used to hire replacement teachers or compensate faculty members for performing their regular duties.
      Item 1a: Project directors are compensated for the time required to conduct the project, including the conferences and follow-up activities. Calculations for compensation should be based on a percentage of academic-year or annual salary.
      Item 1b: List other project faculty or lecturers or professional administrative staff employed by the applicant institution. Depending on their assignments and duties, their compensation may be calculated on the basis of an appropriate percentage of their full-time academic-year or administrative salary or on a per diem basis. The role and duties that the project staff performs should justify the costs charged to the workshop budget.
      Item 1c: List clerical and secretarial support, as well as the support that graduate assistants, if any, will provide. Compensation for support staff may be calculated as a percentage of salary or based on an hourly rate.
      Item 2: Fringe benefits
      Calculate fringe benefits for those individuals employed by the applicant institution and listed on lines 1a, 1b, or 1c. Fringe benefits may include contributions for such items as Social Security, employee insurance, and pension plans. Only those benefits that are not included in an organization’s indirect-cost pool may be shown as direct costs. Also, fringe benefits for clerical, administrative, and part-time personnel may be calculated at different rates than those used for employees on academic-year appointments. The breakdown shown in the budget form should reflect these calculations.
      Item 3: Supplies and materials
      Include the cost of reasonable charges for supplies (e.g., computer and instructional materials) needed for the project. Please note that these costs may be included only if they are not part of the indirect-cost pool.
      Item 4: Services
      Include the cost of duplication and printing, long-distance telephone charges and postage, rental of films and equipment, and subcontracts of any kind. All charges must be essential to the project. (See the section on inadmissible budget items.) If appropriate, justify these modest requests in the optional budget narrative. Include an itemization of subcontract costs.
      Note. The budget should include sufficient funds for duplicating and mailing information and materials about the project to those persons who do not wish to receive them electronically. Project budgets may include a modest amount of funds for publicity efforts to constituencies unique to the specific project.
      Item 5: Consultant fees
      List individuals contributing to the project as speakers, resource scholars, and session leaders. The typical honoraria for visiting scholars range from $350 to $750 per person per day. (Travel and subsistence costs should be entered in budget section 6.)
      Item 6: Professional travel and subsistence
      Travel and subsistence costs for consultants and staff should be calculated in conformity with institutional policy.
      Item 7: Total direct costs
      Total direct costs are calculated by adding items 1 through 6.
    3. Indirect costs (overhead)
      These costs are incurred for common or joint objectives and therefore cannot be readily identified with a specific project or activity of an organization. Items that would be regarded as indirect costs include the salaries of executive officers, the costs of operating and maintaining facilities, local telephone service, office supplies, and accounting and legal services.
      Calculate indirect costs by applying a negotiated indirect-cost rate to a distribution base (typically a portion of the direct costs of the project). Organizations that wish to include overhead charges in the budget but do not have a current federally negotiated indirect-cost rate or have not submitted a pending indirect-cost proposal to a federal agency may choose one of the following options:
      1. NEH will not require the formal negotiation of an indirect-cost rate, provided that the charge for indirect costs does not exceed 10 percent of direct costs, less distorting items (e.g., capital expenditures, participant stipends, major subcontracts), up to a maximum total project charge of $5,000 per year. (Applicants who choose this option should understand that they must maintain documentation to support overhead charges claimed as part of project costs.)
      2. If your organization wishes to use a rate higher than 10 percent or claim more than $5,000 in indirect costs per year, provide an estimate of the indirect-cost rate and the charges on the budget form. If the application is approved for funding, you will be instructed to contact the NEH Office of the Inspector General to develop an indirect-cost proposal.
    4. Amount requested from NEH
      Amount requested includes items A, B, and C (Total Project Costs).
    Budget narrative (optional): If needed, include a brief budget narrative explaining projected expenses or other items in the financial information provided on the NEH budget form.
    Inadmissible budget items: The following costs are not allowable and may not appear in project budgets:
    • cost of substitute teachers or compensation for educators performing their regular duties;
    • costs related to the regular activities of the institution;
    • rental of recreational facilities and costs related to social events such as banquets, receptions, and entertainment;
    • tuition fees for participants (See “Participant stipends” above);
    • travel associated with independent scholarly research; or
    • development of education technologies or materials that are solely pedagogical.
  5. Appendices
    Include only relevant supplementary materials, such as
    • detailed agendas and workplans;
    • reading lists;
    • full résumé(s) from project director(s);
    • brief résumés or biographies (one or two pages) for other project personnel;
    • letters of commitment from core team members, consulting scholars, library and museum professionals, and administrators from collaborating institutions.
    Each appendix should be identified clearly, listed in the table of contents, and numbered consecutively. The proposal narrative should refer to items included in the appendices.
How to Submit Your Application via Grants.gov
Register or Verify Registration with Grants.gov
Applications for this program must be submitted via Grants.gov. Before using Grants.gov for the first time, each organization must register with the Web site to create an institutional profile. Once registered, your organization can then apply for any government grant on the Grants.gov Web site.
If your organization has already registered and you have verified that your registration is still valid, you may skip this step. If not, please see the Grants.gov checklist to guide you through the registration process. We strongly recommend that you complete your registration at least two weeks before the application deadline, as it takes time for your registration to be processed. If you have problems registering with Grants.gov, call the Grants.gov help desk at 1-800-518-4726.
Download the Free Adobe Reader software
To fill out a Grants.gov application package, you will need to download and install the current version of Adobe Reader. The latest version of Adobe Reader, which is designed to function with PCs and Macintosh computers using a variety of popular operating systems, is available at no charge from the Adobe Web site (www.adobe.com).
Once installed, the current version of Adobe Reader will allow you to view and fill out Grants.gov application packages for any federal agency. If you have a problem installing Adobe Reader, it may be because you do not have permission to install a new program on your computer. Many organizations have rules about installing new programs. If you encounter a problem, contact your system administrator.
Download the Application Package
To submit your application, you will need to download the application package from the Grants.gov Web site. You can download the application package at any time. (You do not have to wait for your Grants.gov registration to be complete.) Click the button at the right to download the package.
Save the application package to your computer’s hard drive. To open the application package, select the file and double click. You do not have to be online to work on it.
You can save your application package at any time by clicking the “Save” button at the top of your screen. Tip: If you choose to save your application package before you have completed all the required forms, you may receive an error message indicating that your application is not valid. Click “OK” to save your work and complete the package another time. You can also use e-mail to share the application package with members of your organization or project team.
The application package contains three forms that you must complete in order to submit your application:
  1. Application for Federal Domestic Assistance—Short Organizational (SF-424 Short)—this form asks for basic information about the project, the project director, and the institution.
  2. Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs—this form asks for additional information about the project director, the institution, and the budget.
  3. NEH Attachment Form—this form allows you to attach your narrative, budget, and the other parts of your application.
To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.
How to Fill Out the SF-424 Short Form
Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:
  1. Name of Federal Agency: This will be filled in automatically with “National Endowment for the Humanities.”
  2. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: This will be filled in automatically with the CFDA number and title of the NEH program to which you are applying.
  3. Date Received: Please leave blank.
  4. Funding Opportunity Number: This will be filled in automatically.
  5. Applicant Information: In this section, please supply the name, address, employer/taxpayer identification number (EIN/TIN), DUNS number, Web site address, and congressional district of the institution. Also choose the “type” that best describes your institution (you only need to select one).
    If your institution is located, for example, in the 5th Congressional District of your state, put a “5.” If your institution doesn’t have a congressional district (e.g., it is in a state or U.S. territory that doesn’t have districts or is in a foreign country), put a “0” (zero).
    All institutions applying to federal grant programs are required to provide a DUNS number, issued by Dun & Bradstreet, as part of their application. Project directors should contact their institution’s grants administrator or chief financial officer to obtain their institution’s DUNS number. Federal grant applicants can obtain a DUNS number free of charge by calling 1-866-705-5711. (Learn more about the requirement.)
  6. Project Information: Provide the title of your project. Your title should be brief, descriptive, and substantive. It should also be informative to a nonspecialist audience. Provide a brief description of your project. The description should be written for a nonspecialist audience and clearly state the importance of the proposed work and its relation to larger issues in the humanities. List the starting and ending dates for your project.
  7. Project Director: Provide the Social Security Number, name, title, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers for the project director.
    Disclosure of Social Security Numbers is optional. NEH uses them for internal application processing only.
  8. Primary Contact/Grants Administrator: Provide the contact information for the official responsible for the administration of the grant (i.e., negotiating the project budget and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions of the award). This person is often a grants or research officer, or a sponsored programs official. Normally, the Primary Contact/Grants Administrator is not the same person as the Project Director. If the project director and the grants administrator are the same person, skip to Item 9.
  9. Authorized Representative: Provide the contact information for the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) who is submitting the application on behalf of the institution. This person, often called an “Authorizing Official,” is typically the president, vice president, executive director, provost, or chancellor. In order to become an AOR, the person must be designated by the institution’s E-Business Point of Contact. For more information, please consult the Grants.gov user guide, which is available at: www07.grants.gov/applicants/app_help_reso.jsp.
How to Fill Out the Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs
Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:
  1. Project Director: Use the pull-down menu to select the major field of study for the project director.
  2. Institution Information: Use the pull-down menu to select your type of institution.
  3. Project Funding: Enter your project funding information. Note that applicants for Challenge Grants should use the right column only; applicants to all other programs should use the left column only.
  4. Application Information: Indicate whether the proposal will be submitted to other NEH grant programs, government agencies, or private entities for funding. If so, please indicate where and when. NEH frequently cosponsors projects with other funding sources. Providing this information will not prejudice the review of your application.
    For Type of Application, check “new” if the application requests a new period of funding, whether for a new project or the next phase of a project previously funded by NEH. Check “supplement” if the application requests additional funding for a current NEH grant. If requesting a supplement, provide the current grant number. Before submitting an application for a supplement, applicants should discuss their request with an NEH program officer.
    For Project Field Code, use the pull-down menu to select the humanities field of the project. If the project is multidisciplinary, choose the field that corresponds to the project’s predominant discipline.
How to Use the NEH Attachment Form
You will use this form to attach the files that make up your application.
Your attachments must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). We cannot accept attachments in their original word processing or spreadsheet formats. If you don’t already have software to convert your files into PDFs, many low-cost and free software packages will do so, To learn more, go to www.neh.gov/grants/grantsgov/pdf.html.
When you open the NEH Attachment Form, you will find fifteen attachment buttons, labeled “Attachment 1” through “Attachment 15.” By clicking on a button, you will be able to choose the file from your computer that you wish to attach. You must name and attach your files in the proper order so that we can identify them. Please attach the proper file to the proper button as listed below:
ATTACHMENT 1: To this button, please attach your table of contents. Please name the file “contents.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 2: To this button, please attach your one-page summary. Please name the file “summary.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 3: To this button, please attach your narrative description. Please name the file “narrative.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 4: To this button, please attach your budget. Please name the file “budget.pdf”.
ATTACHMENT 5: To this button, please attach your appendices. Please name the file “appendices.pdf”.
Uploading Your Application to Grants.gov
When you have completed all three forms, use the right-facing arrow to move each of them to the “Mandatory Documents for Submission” column. Once they have been moved over, the “Submit” button will activate. You are now ready to upload your application package to Grants.gov.
During the registration process, your institution designated one or more AORs (Authorized Organization Representatives). These AORs typically work in your institution’s Sponsored Research Office or Grants Office. When you have completed your application, you must ask your AOR to submit the application, using the special username and password that were assigned to him or her during the registration process.
To submit your application, your computer must have an active connection to the Internet. To begin the submission process, click the “submit” button. A page will appear, asking you to sign and submit your application. At this point, your AOR will enter his or her username and password. When you click the “sign and submit application” button, your application package will be uploaded to Grants.gov. Please note that it may take some time to upload your application package, depending on the size of your files and the speed of your Internet connection.
After the upload is complete, a confirmation page will appear. This page, which includes a tracking number, indicates that you have submitted your application to Grants.gov. Please print this page for your records. The AOR will also receive a confirmation e-mail message.
NEH suggests that you submit your application no later than 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) on the day of the deadline. That way, should you encounter a technical problem of some kind, you will still have time to contact the Grants.gov help desk for support. The Grants.gov help desk is open Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time at 1-800-518-4726. You can also send an e-mail to support@grants.gov.
To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.
Deadlines
Draft proposals: Program staff recommends that draft proposals (optional) be submitted no later than August 26, 2009. Time constraints may prevent staff from reviewing draft proposals submitted after that date.
Applications must be received by Grants.gov on or before October 7, 2009. Grants.gov will date- and time-stamp your application after it is fully uploaded. Applications submitted after that date will not be accepted.
Application Review
Proposals for Picturing America School Collaboration Projects are evaluated according to the following criteria:
  1. Intellectual quality and significance
    • Is the proposal’s intellectual rationale clear and persuasive?
    • Does the project foster integration of Picturing America into core academic subjects?
    • Will the sessions engage participants in the study of the Picturing America artworks?
    • Does the project encourage participants to identify local or regional resources to develop the themes of Picturing America?
    • Do the principal scholars, session leaders, museum and library professionals, and support staff have the appropriate expertise and experience to engage participants with Picturing America in a broad and imaginative context?
  2. Design and feasibility
    • Are project activities well planned and described in adequate detail?
    • Are the project personnel qualified to carry out their proposed responsibilities?
    • Does the institutional setting support the project’s objectives?
    • Are the plans for administration sound and well developed?
    • Are the costs of the project reasonable in view of its design and likely results?
    • Are there letters of commitment from core team members, consulting scholars, library and museum professionals, and administrators from collaborating institutions?
  3. Impact
    • Will the project strengthen the teaching of significant, well-defined topics related to Picturing America?
    • Will the experience stimulate participants intellectually and professionally?
    • Will the project foster the continuing use of the Picturing America portfolio in the classroom?
    • Are there plans to disseminate the results of this project to those who will find them most useful?
All other considerations being equal, preference will be given to projects that provide free access to digital materials produced with grant funds.
Late applications will not be reviewed.
Review and selection process
Knowledgeable persons outside NEH will read each application and advise the agency about its merits. NEH staff comments on matters of fact or on significant issues that otherwise would be missing from these reviews, then makes recommendations to the National Council on the Humanities. The National Council meets at various times during the year to advise the NEH chairman on grants. The chairman takes into account the advice provided by the review process and, by law, makes all funding decisions.
Award Administration Information
Award notices
Applicants will be notified by mail of the decision by April 2010. Institutional grants administrators and project directors of successful applications will also receive at that time award documents by mail. Applicants may obtain the evaluations of their applications by sending a letter or e-mail to:
Picturing America School Collaboration Projects
Division of Education Programs
National Endowment for the Humanities
Room 302
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20506
or education@neh.gov
Administrative requirements
Before submitting an application, applicants should review their responsibilities as an award recipient.
Award Conditions
The requirements for awards are contained in the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Organizations, any specific terms and conditions contained in the award document, and the applicable OMB circulars governing federal grants management.
Reporting Requirements
A schedule of report due dates will be included with the award document.
Interim and final performance reports will be required. Further details can be found in Performance Reporting Requirements (formerly Enclosure 2).
A final Federal Financial Report (SF-425) will be due within ninety days after the end of the award period.
Points of Contact
If you have questions about the program, contact
Picturing America School Collaboration Projects
Division of Education Programs
National Endowment for the Humanities
Room 302
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20506
202-606-8500
education@neh.gov
If you need help using Grants.gov, contact
Grants.gov: http://www.grants.gov
Grants.gov help desk: support@grants.gov
Grants.gov customer support tutorials and manuals : http://www.grants.gov/CustomerSupport
Grant.gov support line: 1-800-518-GRANTS (4726)
Grants.gov trouble shooting tips.
Other Information
Privacy Policy
Information in these guidelines is solicited under the authority of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 956. The principal purpose for which the information will be used is to process the grant application. The information may also be used for statistical research, analysis of trends, and Congressional oversight. Failure to provide the information may result in the delay or rejection of the application.
Application Completion Time
The Office of Management and Budget requires federal agencies to supply information on the time needed to complete forms and also to invite comments on the paperwork burden. NEH estimates that the average time to complete this application is fifteen hours per response. This estimate includes time for reviewing instructions, researching, gathering, and maintaining the information needed, and completing and reviewing the application.
Please send any comments regarding the estimated completion time or any other aspect of this application, including suggestions for reducing the completion time, to the Office of Publications, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C. 20506; and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (3136-0134), Washington, D.C. 20503. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB number.

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