Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections
Division of Preservation and Access
Grant Snapshot
Maximum award amount
Implementation: $350,000
Open to
Expected output
Period of performance
Application available
Optional Draft due
Application due
Expected notification date
Project start date
The Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections program helps cultural institutions meet the complex challenge of preserving large and diverse holdings of humanities materials for future generations by supporting sustainable conservation measures that mitigate deterioration, prolong the useful life of collections, and support institutional resilience: the ability to anticipate and respond to disasters resulting from natural or human activity.
Cultural institutions, including libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations, face an enormous challenge: to preserve humanities collections that facilitate research, strengthen teaching, and provide opportunities for lifelong learning. To ensure the preservation of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art, and historical objects, cultural institutions must implement measures that slow deterioration and prevent catastrophic loss from emergencies resulting from natural or human activity. They can accomplish this work most effectively through preventive conservation. Preventive conservation encompasses managing relative humidity, temperature, light, and pollutants in collection spaces; providing protective storage enclosures and systems for collections; and safeguarding collections from theft, fire, floods, and other disasters.
As museums, libraries, archives, and other collecting institutions strive to be effective stewards of humanities collections, they must find ways to implement preventive conservation measures that are sustainable. This program helps cultural repositories plan and implement preservation strategies that pragmatically balance effectiveness, cost, and environmental impact. Sustainable approaches to preservation can contribute to an institution’s financial health, reduce its use of fossil fuels, and benefit its green initiatives, while ensuring that collections are well cared for and available for use in humanities programming, education, and research. Sustainable preventive conservation measures may also aim to prepare and plan for, absorb, respond to, recover from, and more successfully protect collections in the event of emergencies resulting from natural or human activity.
A pre-application webinar for prospective applicants will be held December 3, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Registration is not required, and a recording will be available for those unable to attend. Click here – or on the video below – to view the recorded webinar.
Begin by reading the Notice of Funding Opportunity below to ensure you understand the expectations and restrictions for projects delivered under this grant and are prepared to write the most effective application.
Application Materials
Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Notice of Funding Opportunity 2021 (PDF)
Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Grants.gov application package
Program Resources
SF-429-A Real Property Status Report (PDF)
List of Recently Funded Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections
Sample Application Narratives
Planning Projects:
Autry Museum of the American West, Planning a Sustainable Preservation Environment
Buffalo Bill Memorial Association, Preserving Collections at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Implementation Projects:
Philbrook Museum of Art, Inc., Sustainable HVAC Stabilization Phase 1
Shelburne Museum, Inc., Shelburne Museum Stagecoach Inn Renovation Project
To apply for this grant, you will be need to be registered for a D-U-N-S® number, with the System for Awards Management (SAM), and with Grants.gov. If you have registered with these systems previously, confirm that your registrations are current and up to date. If you fail to allow ample time to complete registration with SAM or Grants.gov, you will not be eligible for a deadline extension or waiver of the online electronic submission requirement.
Be sure to follow the instructions outlined in the notice of funding opportunity and in the Grants.gov instructions.
You will receive a confirmation from Grants.gov when you've successfully submitted your application.
After you submit your application, Grants.gov will send you up to five e-mail messages confirming receipt of your application. These messages represent different stages in the application acceptance process. You should verify that you have received all confirmation messages. Please note that email filters may send these messages to your spam or junk folder.
