As energy costs rise and natural disasters become more frequent, humanities organizations - such as museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, and colleges and universities - face an enormous task: to anticipate operational, physical, and financial impacts of climate-related events on their institutions, while also reducing their own impact on the environment. Climate Smart Humanities Organizations supports these efforts by offering federal matching funds for comprehensive organizational assessments that lead to strategic climate action and adaptation plans.
Through the Climate Smart program, your humanities organization can undertake activities such as energy audits, risk assessments, and meetings with consultants. The resulting climate smart plan helps you establish goals and prioritize actions that reduce your organization’s impacts on the environment through mitigation and vulnerability from extreme events through adaptation. Together, mitigation and adaptation can inform a robust road map that addresses climate challenges, protects assets, and facilitates collaboration between internal and external stakeholders. Strategic planning for climate change is an essential part of sustaining humanities organizations’ operations and activities—becoming climate smart.
Individual organizations can apply for themselves or lead a consortium of organizations collaborating on strategic climate smart planning.
Awards in this program are made with federal matching funds and require fundraising of third-party, non-federal gifts at a ratio of one to one.
Deadlines:
- Optional Draft: TBA
- Applications: Sep. 12, 2024
To be eligible to apply, your organization must be established in the United States or its jurisdictions as one of the following types: • a nonprofit organization recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code • an accredited institution of higher education (public or nonprofit) • a state or local government or one of their agencies • a federally recognized Native American Tribal government
The organization or its subunit must work primarily in the humanities and support research, education, preservation, or public programming in one or more fields of the humanities.
In most cases, the primary applicant for Climate Smart Humanities Organizations must work solely in one or more areas of the humanities. Institutions of higher education and local/tribal governments are eligible applicants only if they are applying on behalf of one or more humanities-based subunits, such as a library, archive, or museum. Institutions of higher education and units of government proposing projects that do not focus exclusively on humanities-based subunits and result in strategic planning documents for humanities-based institutions are not allowable. Completed plans must be specific to the subunit(s) named in the application.
NEH anticipates awarding approximately $6,000,000 to an estimated 20-30 recipients per deadline. You may request up to $300,000 in federal matching funds. Your request should be appropriate to your organization’s fundraising capacity, number of participating organizations, and the goals of the project.