NEH Cultural and Community Resilience Funding Opportunity

Funding for: Digital Surrogate Collections; Oral History Collections; Physical Archival Collections; Plans for Community Documentation

• Optional draft due: December 1, 2022
• Maximum funding: $150,000
• Further questions? preservation@neh.gov

The Cultural and Community Resilience (CCR) program contributes to the continuity of cultural heritage and its availability for future generations by supporting community-based efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic by empowering people to define, collect, and use cultural and historical resources. In addition, the CCR program recognizes the importance of documenting contemporary experiences in these areas and of deepening our understanding of their social, economic, and emotional impact on individuals and communities. The program prioritizes projects from disadvantaged communities in the United States or its jurisdictions.

NEH welcomes applications at all stages of project development from planning through implementation, especially those that employ inclusive methodologies, such as participatory archiving, oral history, rapid response collecting, shared stewardship arrangements, and community-centered access. NEH also encourages you to leverage open access online resources and use Creative Commons licenses, when possible and as appropriate.

The CCR program supports activities such as, but not limited to:

• identifying and capturing cultural and historical resources, including through digital means, in communities potentially endangered by climate events, such as wildfires, drought, hurricanes, or rising sea levels;
• safeguarding cultural resources to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic;
• collecting oral histories from individuals impacted by extreme weather events or the COVID-19 pandemic, including survivors and first responders;
• documenting traditional knowledge, memories of elders, practices, or technologies;
• engaging in collaborative planning efforts to prepare communities for rapid response collecting; and
• applying insights from cultural heritage identification and documentation projects to inform local and regional community resilience strategies.

Optional Draft Review: Applicants may submit proposal drafts for review by program staff before January 12, 2023, due date. The deadline for draft submission is December 1, 2022.

Additional inquiries: You may reach out with inquiries or request to speak with a program officer at any point before the deadline

Second Application Deadline: A second deadline for this application will be held on May 16, 2023. The Deadline for submitting an optional draft for this deadline is April 11, 2023.