Public Engagement with Historical Records | ENGAGEMENT 201810

Opportunity Information: Apply for ENGAGEMENT 201810

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), part of the National Archives and Records Administration, is offering the Public Engagement with Historical Records grant to support projects that help people actively use and connect with historical records. The central goal is public-facing engagement, especially approaches that make primary sources easier to discover, understand, and use, including through online tools. NHPRC is particularly interested in projects that produce reusable models, workflows, or technologies that other archives, libraries, and cultural organizations can freely adopt, so the benefits extend beyond a single institution.

Competitive proposals tend to be collaborative and interdisciplinary, bringing together archivists with documentary editors, historians, educators, technologists, and community partners. NHPRC also signals that strong projects will go beyond simply digitizing or displaying materials; they will test inventive methods for introducing primary sources and teaching people how to work with them in multiple settings (for example, in classrooms, community programs, and online platforms). In practice, the opportunity supports programs that motivate people to study and use historical records for institutional, educational, or personal purposes, and that can be replicated elsewhere.

The announcement highlights several example project types. One is engaging volunteer "citizen archivists" to speed up access to digitized collections by having the public help identify items, add tags, transcribe handwriting, annotate documents, or otherwise improve description and usability. Another is building educational programs for K-12 students, college courses, or community audiences that get participants working directly with records already held in repositories or gathered through the project. NHPRC also encourages initiatives that collect primary sources from the public through events or gatherings, paired with facilitated discussions, public programming, or websites that share and interpret what was collected. Creative and artistic uses of historical records are also eligible, such as performances based on life stories, visual art using facsimiles, audiovisual collages, or turning archival text into lyrics or musical compositions, as long as the work meaningfully engages people with the records. Finally, projects that develop technologies to promote sharing information about historical records are encouraged, especially when the resulting tools can be used widely by other institutions.

Funding is offered as a discretionary grant under CFDA 89.003 (Humanities/Cultural Affairs). Projects typically run one to three years. Individual awards generally range from $50,000 to $150,000, with a program total of up to $275,000 noted in the description, and the source data listing an award ceiling of $150,000 and an expected number of awards. Funded projects may start no earlier than July 1, 2019. Recipients must acknowledge NHPRC support in publications and products created with grant assistance.

Eligibility includes nonprofit organizations and institutions (including 501(c)(3) nonprofits), colleges and universities (public or private), state and local government agencies, and federally recognized or state recognized Native American tribes or groups. A key financial condition is cost sharing: NHPRC will cover no more than 50 percent of the total project costs in this category, so applicants must provide at least half of the project budget through their own contributions. Those contributions can include direct expenses, allowable indirect expenses counted as match, in-kind support, third-party non-federal contributions, and program income generated by the project. At the same time, NHPRC funds cannot be used for indirect costs, so any indirect costs must be placed on the applicant side of the cost share rather than charged to the grant.

On the compliance and submission side, applicant organizations must register in the System for Award Management (SAM) and keep that registration active, and they must include a valid DUNS number in the application (noting that federal identifier systems have since evolved, but the opportunity text specifies DUNS). A complete application package must include Standard Form 424, Standard Form 424B, a project narrative and summary, supplementary materials, and a detailed budget. Applications missing required components, or applications focused entirely on activities NHPRC considers ineligible (as defined in its "What we do and do not fund" guidance), will not be reviewed. The opportunity listed an original closing date of October 4, 2018, under funding opportunity number ENGAGEMENT 201810.

• The National Archives and Records Administration in the humanities (see cultural affairs in cfda) sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Public Engagement with Historical Records" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 89.003.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 12, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 04, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $150,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for ENGAGEMENT 201810

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