Emergency and Disaster Relief
Waterlogged books removed from the Kellogg-Hubbard Library after the July flooding in Vermont.
Photo by Noel Clark
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) regularly provides emergency funding to cultural institutions such as archives, museums, libraries, historic sites, and colleges in the wake of natural disasters such as flooding, mudslides, hurricanes, and wildfire.
These fast-track grants assist organizations in attending to urgent needs to safeguard humanities collections and facilities. NEH disaster recovery grants have been used to stabilize collections, conserve damaged items and artifacts, and purchase generators and conservation materials to prevent further damage to humanities materials from mold, water, or other environmental hazards.
To get funds quickly to institutions and areas affected by disaster, NEH offers both direct emergency grants to cultural organizations and supplemental funding to state and jurisdictional humanities councils to regrant and coordinate local resources and disaster response in the region. In the last five years, $1 million in NEH disaster recovery supplements to humanities councils in 10states have provided emergency support to 95 local cultural organizations recovering from environmental disasters, aided the creation of regional cultural heritage disaster preparedness networks, and helped fund humanities activities that support cultural and community resilience.
Emergency disaster recovery funding for cultural organizations is made available in response to federally declared disasters through Grants.gov and the NEH website. Monitor NEH.gov for updates on grant offerings or contact your local state or jurisdictional humanities council for more information..
In addition, NEH provides ongoing grant support to cultural organizations for the development of disaster and emergency recovery planning, staff training in emergency response, and to conservation organizations that assist in disaster response and mitigation through grant programs administered by the agency’s Division of Preservation and Access and Office of Challenge Programs.
Related NEH grant programs:
Chair’s Disaster Recovery Grants for Humanities Collections
The Chair’s Disaster Recovery Grants for Humanities Collections program helps humanities organizations that steward collections respond to and recover from local, state, regional, and federally declared disasters, including fires, floods, hurricanes, mudslides, and climate-related disasters. NEH will consider applications only if the NEH Chair specifically invites an organization affected by a disaster to apply or issues an open call for applications from organizations affected by a disaster.
Preservation and Access Education and Training
This funding opportunity supports educational programs for professionals who preserve and provide access to humanities collections, which may involve emergency response and preparedness training.
Research and Development
This program supports research on new methods and approaches to conservation, preservation, collections stewardship and management, and damage mitigation.
Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions
Intended to assist small cultural organizations assess, manage, and expand access to their collections, these grants may be used for a wide range of preservation and conservation purposes, including staff training in disaster planning and response, risk assessment, and the purchase of environmental monitoring systems and materials.
Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections
These larger grants help cultural institutions preserve humanities collections for future generations through environmentally sustainable preventative care strategies, including projects to improve systems and conditions for collections storage and display to reduce vulnerability to environmental threats.
Climate Smart Humanities Organizations
Offered under NEH’s American Tapestry initiative, this grant program offers federal matching funds to support comprehensive organizational assessments that lead to strategic climate action and adaptation plans.
Cultural and Community Resilience
This NEH funding opportunity supports community-based efforts to address the impacts of climate change and COVID-19 by safeguarding cultural resources and fostering cultural resilience through identifying, documenting, and/or collecting cultural heritage and community experiences. The program prioritizes projects from disadvantaged communities in the United States or its jurisdictions.