Preservation & Access Grants (up to $10,000)
Our Preservation & Access Grants fund projects that mālama our history, and preserve existing resources that are important to a community, and to make them publicly accessible to researchers, students, and the general public.
Grant Application Deadline
- Closes May 22, 2024 at 5:00 pm HST
What makes a strong Preservation & Access Project?
- What is the humanities significance of the collection or resource that you wish to preserve and make accessbile?
- Does your project tell stories of Hawaiʻi to our community?
- Are you working to preserve cultural material that remembers our history?
As the Hawai‘i affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, we are proud to support their values of research and expertise. Hawai‘i’s rich cultural heritage and academic knowledge are held in institutions and spaces, such as libraries, archives, museums, and community resource centers to name a few examples.
Preservation & Access Projects should be anchored in the preservation of existing collections that could be comprised of works on paper, recordings, still and moving images, works of art, objects of material culture, and digital collections. These are a few examples of the kinds of collections this grant is designed to support. A Preservation & Access Project must also provide access to these preserved collections through the widest means possible by the organization or institution to researchers, students, and the general public.
Preservation & Access Leadership (REQUIRED)
A strong project includes project personnel that can provide professional guidance, rigor, and analysis, and apply librarian, archival preservation, and conservation standards and develop universal access using humanities indexing and cataloguing methods. The Project Director can also be the Preservation & Access Leadership. At least one Librarian/Archivist Leadership name and a letter of commitment explaining their support, role, and commitment is required.
Projects and Formats Eligible for a Preservation & Access Grant
Please note that while grant funds are used to preserve and create access to an existing collection, a portion of the grant should be used for informational programing, open to the general public, that describes the content of the collection and informs the public how they can best access that collection.
Please be advised that some collection projects are not eligible for Preservation & Access Grants, such as oral history projects or ethnographic projects that are currently in the process of collecting interviews and data, however these kinds of projects are eligible for our Public Humanities Grants, if they contain a strong humanities public programming component.
Additional Applications Requirements
Organization’s Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) and System for Award Management (SAM)
Because our grants are federal in origin, your organization is required to be registered in the U.S. government’s System for Award Management (SAM). Your registration, which is renewed annually, must be currently active at the time of your application. The process for entity registrations includes getting the Unique Entity ID, and requires assertions, representations and certifications, and other information about your organization. You will know you have been fully registered when you receive a CAGE Code.
Your UEI registration must be open for public searches. As part of the application review process, we will search and access your organization’s information to confirm the registration status. If we cannot access your UEI (SAM) your application may be disqualified.
Your organization (or grant applying entity) may already be registered in the SAM system and have a UEI. Your executive administrators should know about your organization’s SAM account and its current registration status, so be sure to check with them.
More Information click HERE:
To Apply
It is highly recommended that you contact Stacy Hoshino, director of Community Grants to consult with about your project before starting the LOI at shoshino@hihumanities.org or (808) 469-4551.
Submitting a Letter of Inquiry through the grant application portal (REQUIRED)
Our grants application process is competitive. To learn more about our Grants Program, the requirements, and your eligibility, please refer to our FAQs webpage.
The Letter of Inquiry (LOI) is your first opportunity to tell us about your project idea. It is also the first step to help you determine whether organization meets the application requirements and if your project is:
- Humanities focused;
- Appropriate to the grant line you are applying to.
Note:
- Your LOI should be submitted through the grant application portal no later than three-weeks before the grant deadline. After this time, we cannot guarantee timely feedback on your LOI.
- After submitting your LOI, we will contact you within 48 hours to discuss your project. If no further information is required, you will be notified by email the application is now open.
- After your LOI is approved and If you want to have us review your application draft, please contact the grants director no later than two weeks before the application deadline. We cannot guarantee a review beyond two weeks before the deadline.
*Incomplete or inaccurate information may disqualify your application from the review process.
CLICK HERE to preview application and start the application process. We encourage all applicants to visit Some of Our Fabulous Grantees section to gain a broader perspective on the type and range of grants made in recent years.