Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions

Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized organizations preserve and manage humanities collections, ensuring their significance for a variety of users, including source communities, humanities researchers, students, and the public, by building their capacity to identify and address physical and intellectual preservation risks. These collections may include special collections of books and journals, archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, moving images, sound recordings, architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art objects, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, furniture, historical objects, and digital materials. 

The Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program focuses on foundational activities in preservation and management of collections, such as assessments, development of plans and policies, consultations with scholars and source communities, emergency preparedness, environmental monitoring, rehousing, format surveys and inventories, and training in preservation and collections management. Applicants may draw on the knowledge of consultants whose preservation skills and experience are related to the types of collections and the nature of the activities on which their projects focus.  Within the conservation field, conservators usually specialize in the care of specific types of collections, such as objects, paper, or paintings.  Applicants should choose a conservator whose specialty is appropriate for the nature of their collections.  Similarly, when assessing the preservation needs of library, museum, or archival holdings, applicants should seek a consultant specifically knowledgeable about the preservation of collections in these types of institutions. 

The program encourages applications from small and mid-sized institutions that have never received an NEH grant; community colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Tribal Colleges and Universities; and Native American tribes and Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian organizations with humanities collections. Furthermore, organizations or collections that represent the contributions of under-represented communities are highly encouraged. 

Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions Webinar slide deck (PDF)