The Office of Enterprise

The Office of Enterprise establishes partnerships with public and private organizations and philanthropic individuals. It raises funds for NEH activities and initiatives and explores opportunities to strengthen the Endowment’s leadership in the humanities. In 2001 NEH marked its thirty-fifth anniversary with an event cosponsored by the Library of Congress. Numerous former NEH National Council members and staff, members of Congress, recipients of the National Humanities Medal and members of the general public attended. The Enterprise Office secured funding for the occasion, which highlighted a new book about the history of NEH. The Regional Humanities Centers Initiative was the fundraising focus of the Enterprise Office in 2001. Through the initiative, NEH sought to establish university-based humanities centers throughout the United States that will research, teach, and conduct public education programs on the people, history, and cultures of ten regions of the United States. NEH received more than $535,000 in support of the initiative during the year.

The upcoming Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition begins in 2003 and will run for three years. Hundreds of events will commemorate the historic three-year journey of the Corps of Discovery commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the interior of the North American continent. In 2001, NEH joined the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial and numerous federal partners in an agreement to participate in the national celebration.

The My History Is America’s History project continued during the year to encourage Americans to discover, preserve, and share their family stories as integral parts of the nation’s history. The project, launched in l999 as a website (www.myhistory.org) with accompanying educational materials, has registered more than 650,000 visitor sessions since its beginning. Links to the My History website have nearly doubled for a total of more than 2,000. Articles featuring My History Is America’s History appeared in publications--including Ancestry magazine, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the Arizona Republic--which together reached nearly five million readers. Organizations such as the Idaho State 4-H Leader’s Forum distributed materials to thousands of participants at their national meetings. Collaborating for the first time, Indiana Public Television station WFYI, the Indiana Historical Society, the State Library and the Indiana Humanities Council highlighted My History materials in workshops attended by librarians, school teachers, and educators affiliated with museums and other cultural organizations. The National Archives in Washington, D.C. made My History posters available to hundreds of visitors and researchers.

As part of NEH’s Education Division, high quality humanities websites were selected for inclusion on EDSITEment, an online resource for humanities educators (edsitement.neh.gov), and accompanying curriculum materials were developed for use by the nation’s school teachers. During the year, panelists reviewed four hundred nominations and recommended twenty-six websites for inclusion on EDSITEment, bringing the total number on the portal to131. WorldCom Foundation made it possible for NEH to continue the project in 2001 through the multiyear funding ($700,000) it had awarded the previous year. In addition WorldCom Foundation supported a powerful search engine, the hosting of the website, and thousands of free teacher-training sessions in school districts throughout the United States.

Small libraries across the country received fifty recently published volumes in The Library of America, a series of books by the nation’s foremost writers, and funding to support public programming. This was the result of the previous years’s collaboration in which the Enterprise Office worked with the NEH Division of Public Programs to secure a $1 million grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The grant went to a project that was jointly supported by NEH, The Library of America, and the American Library Association. The project aimed to help eight hundred small libraries build their collection of American writing and expand opportunities for educational programs. The Carnegie gift enabled the partners to award $600,000 in grants to libraries during 2001.

NEH 35TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION SUPPORTERS

Principal Support
Grocery Manufacturers of America
Don Henley
The Library of Congress
Participating Support
Bernard Bailyn
Patricia M. Battin
Mary J.C. Cresimore
E.L. Doctorow
David C. Driskell
Wallace B. Edgerton
John Hope Franklin
Joseph H. Hagan
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall
Mikiso Hane
Gerald Holton
Bernard M.W. Knox
Martin E. Marty
Edmund S. Morgan
Walter J. Ong, SJ and The Jesuits of The Missouri Province
Arthur L. Peterson
Sharon P. Rockefeller
Ramón Eduardo Ruiz
Anita Silver
Jean Vaughan Smith
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
Frank E. Vandiver
Ethyle R. Wolfe

PROGRAM SUPPORT THROUGH GIFTS, RESTRICTED AND UNRESTRICTED

The National Endowment for the Humanities is pleased to acknowledge private contributors and public partners who have donated $1,000 or more in funds or in-kind services directly to NEH during 2001, or who have joined forces with the NEH to support its humanities initiatives.

American Library Association
America’s Promise
Carnegie Corporation of New York
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Council of the Great City Schools
Dion Peterson Foundation, Inc.
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
Geneology.com
Heritage Preservation
Houghton Mifflin Company
James Annenberg Levee Charitable Foundation
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Library of America
The Library of Congress
John N. Palmer Foundation
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Lyn and Norman Lear Foundation
Polly Annenberg Levee Charitable Trust
Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation
National Science Foundation
National Trust for the Humanities
Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc.
President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
PSINet Inc.
Sandra and Chuck Lyons
Sara Lee Corporation
U.S. Department of the Interior
Viking Range Corporation
WorldCom Foundation