Humanities Collections and Reference Resources

Prior to submitting a proposal, applicants are encouraged to contact program officers, who can offer advice about preparing the proposal and review preliminary proposal drafts if they are submitted at least six weeks before the deadline. Time constraints may prevent staff from reviewing draft proposals submitted after that date. Draft proposals should be submitted by e-mail attachment to preservation@neh.gov.

To see sample narratives of funded projects, follow the links under Program Resources above.

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR APPLICATION

You will prepare your application for submission via Grants.gov just as you would a paper application. Your application should consist of the following parts.

Description of the project and its significance

Provide a one-page abstract written for a nonspecialist audience, clearly explaining the project’s importance to the humanities, its principal activities, and its expected results.
Table of contents

List all parts of the application and, beginning with the narrative, number all pages consecutively.
Narrative

Limit the narrative to twenty single-spaced pages. All pages should have one-inch margins and the font size should be no smaller than eleven point. Use appendices to provide supplementary material.

Individuals with a variety of professional backgrounds will read these applications and advise NEH on their merits. Project narratives should therefore be written with a minimum of technical jargon.

Keep the application review criteria (see below) in mind when writing the narrative, which consists of the following sections.
- Significance
  
  Justify the importance of the project on the basis of its long-term benefits to research, education, or public programming in the humanities. Discuss the central humanities themes, questions, or disciplines to be addressed.
  
  For projects involving humanities collections, describe the nature, size, and intellectual content of the selected collections; explain how they relate to similar collections, both within and external to your institution; discuss the rationale for focusing on these particular sources; and describe the selection criteria.
  
  For proposed reference works and research tools, define the selection criteria and explain how your project relates to existing resources. Demonstrate what this work or tool will provide that other resources cannot.
  
  Discuss actual and anticipated use of the collection or reference work. Identify the audience(s) that the project would effectively serve. Provide evidence of use, when possible, through examples of outcomes such as scholarly publications, educational activities, exhibitions, or media programming.
- History, scope, and duration
  
  Provide a concise history of the project, including information about preliminary research or planning, financial support already received, and resources or research facilities available. If a project will take more than three years to complete, describe the scope and duration of the entire project as well as the specific accomplishments or products intended for the grant period for which funding is requested.
  
  List any project-specific products or publications to date in print or electronic form. When appropriate, indicate print runs, sales, and royalties relating to publications; in the case of online products, include the URL and provide use statistics. If the project has been previously supported by NEH, compare the accomplishments in the current or past grant period with the intended goals.
- Methodology and standards
  
  Explain the manner in which the project will be executed. Activities should conform to appropriate national standards and accepted professional practices. (Informational links to relevant standards are provided in Frequently Asked Questions.) If your project's methodology departs from usual standards and procedures, explain why its goals require such an approach and how the results would be interoperable with other relevant resources that do follow existing standards.
  
  Discuss any intellectual property or privacy issues that might affect the availability of the materials and whether permissions and proof of informed consent have been obtained; provide any pertinent documentation in an appendix.
  
  Describe how the project’s results will be maintained and supported beyond the period of the grant. Provide information on the capability and commitment of the institution to ensure sustained access to collections or reference materials. Where applicable, indicate how editorial revision will be conducted, including addition of new material or updating of current content.
  
  Proposals employing digital technology and methods should provide a number of details including, as appropriate,
  - the hardware and software to be used;
  - preparations for and implementation of data processing (e.g. digital capture, keyboarding, optical character recognition, or conversion from another electronic format);
  - levels of resolution, compression, image enhancement, and accuracy of textual conversion or transcription;
  - tagging schema and markup levels;
  - schema for descriptive and/or preservation metadata and controlled vocabularies;
  - organization of the digitized material or database, content management system and/or data structure, performance capabilities, and technical documentation;
  - provisions for ensuring quality control;
  - methods for enhancing discoverability, via search engine harvesting and/or inclusion in an aggregated resource such as a digital library, cooperative portal, or clearinghouse; and
  - plans for preserving digital assets and enabling their migration to future media and formats.
  Include the following, as relevant.
  
  Projects to preserve and make accessible humanities collections
  
  Provide information about the collections’ present physical condition and level of intellectual control. Discuss the manner in which the materials will be organized, or reorganized, and the ways users will discover and access them. Describe the storage and environmental conditions in which collections will be held and the provisions for their use. (NEH expects that any materials proposed for support will be publicly accessible and housed in an environment that meets standards for preservation.) Additionally, provide the following information.
  - For archival processing efforts, discuss the rationale for the arrangement of the collections and the level of description that will be provided. Support is generally limited to the preparation of folder-level finding aids.
  - For cataloging, describe the level of detail of the records to be created, the record formats, vocabularies, and systems to be used, the extent to which the records will involve original, enhanced, or copy cataloging, and indicate how information will be included in national catalog systems.
  - For projects implementing preservation measures, describe the amount and types of material to be preserved, the rationale for the chosen approach or methodology, and any applicable procedures and/or quality control measures. Projects incorporating conservation treatment should include (in the appendices) detailed condition reports, treatment proposals, and cost estimates prepared by qualified conservators.
  - For projects to digitize collections and/or to preserve and provide access to born-digital materials, specify the quantity of digital objects to be made available for use, the nature and quality of the sources from which they would be derived, and the handling and care of original materials during and after reformatting.
  Projects to create reference works or research tools
  - Indicate the content, form, and length of entries or citations and describe the editorial procedures for writing entries and verifying information. Include in an appendix a preliminary list of entries, organized by subject areas or topics, and the instructions provided to contributors.
  - Describe the lexicographical principles to be employed for a language dictionary.
  Applicants requesting complete or partial funding for the development, acquisition, preservation, or enhancement of geospatial data, products, or services must conduct a due diligence search on the Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) Portal (http://www.geodata.gov) to discover whether their needed geospatial-related data, products, or services already exist. If not, the proposed geospatial data, products, or services must be produced in compliance with applicable proposed guidance posted at (http://www.fgdc.gov).
- Work plan
  
  Provide a detailed time schedule indicating benchmarks of accomplishment during each stage of the project.
- Staff
  
  Identify the members of the project’s staff, including consultants, and describe their duties and relevant qualifications for the tasks assigned. Be specific about the tasks that they will perform and the aspects of the project that they will oversee. Indicate the amount of time that the principal members of the project’s staff will devote to the project. If the project has an advisory board, explain its function. Provide two-page résumés for major project staff and all consultants in the appendices.
  
  If the project has an advisory board, list the names and affiliations of the board’s members and explain the board's function.
- Dissemination
  
  Explain how the results of the project will be disseminated and why these means are appropriate to the subject matter and intended audience. If relevant, discuss publishing arrangements, publicity plans, estimated prices, and user costs. Describe plans to bring the project to the attention of the relevant communities of users through, for example, conference presentations and demonstrations.
  
  NEH expects grantees to provide broad access to all grant products through the Internet, on-site use, interlibrary loan, or duplication of materials at cost, insofar as the conditions of the materials and intellectual property rights allow. NEH strongly encourages projects that offer free public access to online resources. All other considerations being equal, NEH will give preference to projects that provide free, online access to digital materials produced with grant funds.
History of grants

If the project has received previous support from any federal or nonfederal sources, including NEH, list on one page the sources, dates, and amounts of these funds. If the project has a long history of support, the sources and contributions may be grouped and summarized.
List of participants

On a separate page, list in alphabetical order, surnames first, all project participants and collaborators and their institutional affiliations. This list should include as relevant advisory board members, consultants, and authors of letters of commitment and letters of support. Because these individuals may not participate in the review process, this list is used to ensure that prospective evaluators have no conflict of interest with the projects that they will assess.
Budget

Using the instructions, complete the budget form (PDF). While all items should be justified by the narrative, further explanation may be included in brief budget notes. For any outsourced work, third-party contractor costs should be included in the budget category “Services.” Attach a complete itemization of these costs to the budget form. If there is more than one contractor, each one must be listed on the budget form and the costs itemized separately.

To the maximum extent practical, all procurement contracts must be made through an open and free competition. They are to be awarded to the bidder or offeror whose bid or offer is most advantageous, considering price, quality and other factors. Applicants must justify procurement contracts in excess of $100,000 that are not awarded by competitive bids or offers.

Permanent equipment may be purchased for a project if an analysis demonstrates that purchasing is more economical and practical than leasing. Permanent equipment is defined as nonexpendable personal property costing $5,000 or more and having a useful life of more than one year.

Consistent with the Buy American Act (41 U.S.C. 10a-c and Public Law 105-277), grantees and subrecipients who purchase equipment and products with grant funds should purchase only American-made equipment and products.
Appendices

Appendices should show the final or anticipated form of the project or illustrate the experience of the project’s staff in doing comparable work, e.g., bibliographic records, catalog entries, finding aids, entries for encyclopedias or dictionaries, results of specific queries to databases, screenshots for Web interfaces, instructions to contributors, audio files and images, and conservators’ reports. Use the appendices to provide
- sample materials and reports (hyperlinks to online versions may also be used in the narrative);
- brief résumés (no longer than two pages) for staff with major responsibilities for the project’s implementation and for consultants to the project;
- job descriptions for any additional staff who will be hired specifically to work on the project;
- letters of commitment from key cooperating participants or partners, both within and outside the parent institution; and
- letters of support (preferably no more than three) from experts in the project’s subject area, the proposed methodology, or the technical plan.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION VIA GRANTS.GOV

Register or Verify Registration with Grants.gov

Applications for this program must be submitted via Grants.gov. Before using Grants.gov for the first time, each organization must register with the Web site to create an institutional profile. Once registered, your organization can then apply for any government grant on the Grants.gov Web site.

If your organization has already registered and you have verified that your registration is still valid, you may skip this step. If not, please see our handy checklist to guide you through the registration process. We strongly recommend that you complete or verify your registration at least two weeks before the application deadline, as it takes time for your registration to be processed. If you have problems registering with Grants.gov, call the Grants.gov help desk at 1-800-518-4726.

Download the Free Adobe Reader software

To fill out a Grants.gov application package, you will need to download and install the current version of Adobe Reader. The latest version of Adobe Reader, which is designed to function with PCs and Macintosh computers using a variety of popular operating systems, is available at no charge from the Adobe Web site (www.adobe.com).

Once installed, the current version of Adobe Reader will allow you to view and fill out Grants.gov application packages for any federal agency. If you have a problem installing Adobe Reader, it may be because you do not have permission to install a new program on your computer. Many organizations have rules about installing new programs. If you encounter a problem, contact your system administrator.

To submit your application, you will need to download the application package from the Grants.gov Web site. You can download the application package at any time. (You do not have to wait for your Grants.gov registration to be complete.) Click the button to the right to download the package.

Save the application package to your computer’s hard drive. To open the application package, select the file and double click. You do not have to be online to work on it.

You can save your application package at any time by clicking the “Save” button at the top of your screen. Tip: If you choose to save your application package before you have completed all the required forms, you may receive an error message indicating that your application is not valid. Click “OK” to save your work and complete the package another time. You can also use e-mail to share the application package with members of your organization or project team.

The application package contains three forms that you must complete in order to submit your application:

Application for Federal Domestic Assistance - Short Organizational (SF-424 Short)—this form asks for basic information about the project, the project director, and the institution.
Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs—this form asks for additional information about the project director, the institution, and the budget.
NEH Attachment Form—this form allows you to attach your narrative, budget, and the other parts of your application.

To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.

HOW TO FILL OUT THE APPLICATION FOR FEDERAL DOMESTIC ASSISTANCE SF-424 SHORT FORM

Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:

Name of Federal Agency: This will be filled in automatically with “National Endowment for the Humanities.”
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: This will be filled in automatically with the CFDA number and title of the NEH program to which you are applying.
Date Received: Please leave blank.
Funding Opportunity Number: This will be filled in automatically.
Applicant Information: In this section, please supply the name, address, employer/taxpayer identification number (EIN/TIN), DUNS number, Web site address, and congressional district of the institution. Also choose the “type” that best describes your institution (you only need to select one).
If your institution is located in the 5th Congressional District of your state, put a “5.” If your institution doesn’t have a congressional district (e.g. it is in a state or U.S. territory that doesn’t have districts or is in a foreign country), put a “0” (zero).

All institutions applying to federal grant programs are required to provide a DUNS number, issued by Dun & Bradstreet, as part of their application. Project directors should contact their institution’s grant administrator or chief financial officer to obtain their institution’s DUNS number. Federal grant applicants can obtain a DUNS number free of charge by calling 1-866-705-5711. (Learn more about the requirement.)
Project Information: Provide the title of your project. Your title should be brief, descriptive, and substantive. It should also be informative to a nonspecialist audience. Provide a brief description of your project. The description should be written for a nonspecialist audience and clearly state the importance of the proposed work and its relation to larger issues in the humanities. List the starting and ending dates for your project.
Project Director: Provide the Social Security Number, name, title, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers for the project director.

Disclosure of Social Security Numbers is optional. NEH uses them for internal application processing only.
Primary Contact/Grants Administrator: Provide the contact information for the official responsible for the administration of the grant (i.e., negotiating the project budget and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions of the award). This person is often a grants or research officer, or a sponsored programs official. Normally, the Primary Contact/Grants Administrator is not the same person as the Project Director. If the project director and the institutions administrator are the same person, skip to Item 9.
Authorized Representative: Provide the contact information for the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) who is submitting the application on behalf of the institution. This person, often called an “Authorizing Official,” is typically the president, vice president, executive director, provost, or chancellor. In order to become an AOR, the person must be designated by the institution’s E-Business Point of Contact. For more information, please consult the Grants.gov user guide, which is available at: http://grants.gov/applicants/app_help_reso.jsp.

HOW TO FILL OUT THE SUPPLEMENTARY COVER SHEET FOR NEH GRANT PROGRAMS

Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:

Project Director: Use the pull-down menu to select the major field of study for the project director.
Institution Information: Use the pull-down menu to select your type of institution.
Project Funding: Enter your project funding information. Note that applicants for Challenge Grants should use the right column only; applicants to all other programs should use the left column only.
Application Information: Indicate whether the application will be submitted to other NEH grant programs, government agencies, or private entities for funding. If so, please indicate where and when. NEH frequently cosponsors projects with other funding sources. Providing this information will not prejudice the review of your application.

For Type of Application, check “new” if the application requests a new period of funding, whether for a new project or the next phase of a project previously funded by NEH. Check "supplement" if the application requests additional funding for a current NEH grant. Applicants requesting a supplement should provide the current grant number. Before submitting an application for a supplement, applicants should discuss their request with an NEH program officer.

For Project Field Code, use the pull-down menu to select the humanities field of the project. If the project is multidisciplinary, choose the field that corresponds to the project's predominant discipline.

HOW TO USE THE NEH ATTACHMENT FORM

You will use this form to attach the various files that make up your application.

Your attachments must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). We cannot accept attachments in their original word processing or spreadsheet formats. If you don’t already have software to convert your files into PDFs, many low-cost and free software packages will do so. To learn more, go to http://www.neh.gov/grants/grantsgov/pdf.html.

When you open the NEH Attachment Form, you will find fifteen attachment buttons, labeled “Attachment 1” through “Attachment 15.” By clicking on a button, you will be able to choose the file from your computer that you wish to attach. You must name and attach your files in the proper order so that we can identify them. Please attach the proper file to the proper button as listed below:

ATTACHMENT 1: To this button, please attach your description of the project and its significance. Please name the file “projectdescription.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 2: To this button, please attach your table of contents. Please name the file “contents.pdf ”.

ATTACHMENT 3: To this button, please attach your narrative. Please name the file “narrative.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 4: To this button, please attach your history of grants. Please name the file “granthistory.pdf ”.

ATTACHMENT 5: To this button, please attach your list of project participants, consultants, and advisers. Please name the file “participants.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 6: To this button, please attach your budget. Please name the file “budget.pdf ”.

ATTACHMENT 7: To this button, please attach your appendices. Please name the file “appendices.pdf ”.

Use the remaining buttons to attach any additional materials (if appropriate). Please give these attachments meaningful file names and ensure that they are PDFs.

UPLOADING YOUR APPLICATION TO GRANTS.GOV

When you have completed all three forms, use the right-facing arrow to move each of them to the “Mandatory Documents for Submission” column. Once they have been moved over, the “Submit” button will activate. You are now ready to upload your application package to Grants.gov.

During the registration process, your institution designated one or more AORs (Authorized Organization Representatives). These AORs typically work in your institution’s Sponsored Research Office or Grants Office. When you have completed your application, you must ask your AOR to submit the application, using the special username and password that were assigned to him or her during the registration process.

To submit your application, your computer must have an active connection to the Internet. To begin the submission process, click the “submit” button. A page will appear, asking you to sign and submit your application. At this point, your AOR will enter his or her username and password. When you click the “sign and submit application” button, your application package will be uploaded to Grants.gov. Please note that it may take some time to upload your application package, depending on the size of your files and the speed of your Internet connection.

After the upload is complete, a confirmation page will appear. This page, which includes a tracking number, indicates that you have submitted your application to Grants.gov. Please print this page for your records. The AOR will also receive a confirmation e-mail message.

NEH suggests that you submit your application no later than 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the day of the deadline. That way, should you encounter a technical problem of some kind, you will still have time to contact the Grants.gov help desk for support. The Grants.gov help desk is open Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time at 1-800-518-4726. You can also send an e-mail to support@grants.gov.

HOW TO SUBMIT SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

If you are sending supplementary materials (those that cannot be scanned and converted to an electronic form and submitted via Grants.gov), please include a list of the supplementary materials in the application’s table of contents, with an indication that the materials are being sent separately. The supplementary materials should be sent to the following address:

Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506
202-606-8570

NEH continues to experience lengthy delays in the delivery of mail by the U.S. Postal Service, and in some cases materials are damaged by the irradiation process. We recommend that supplementary materials be sent by a commercial delivery service to ensure that they arrive intact by the receipt deadline.

Deadlines

Applications must be received by Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time), Wednesday, July 15, 2009. Grants.gov will date- and time-stamp your application after it is fully uploaded. Applications submitted after that date will not be accepted. Supplementary materials must also arrive at NEH by July 15, 2009, to be considered as part of the application.

Evaluators are asked to apply the following criteria in assessing applications:

the project’s significance for supporting scholarly research, education, or public programming in the humanities;
the soundness of the proposed methodology, including the selection criteria where applicable and the project’s adherence to accepted national standards and professional practices, especially those that would contribute to making grant products interoperable with related resources and facilitate their discovery;
the viability, efficiency, and productivity of the project, as indicated by the work plan;
the qualifications of the project’s staff;
the quality of the project’s plans for disseminating information about and providing access to grant products; and
the reasonableness of the proposed budget in relation to anticipated results.

Late applications will not be reviewed.

Review and selection process

Knowledgeable persons outside NEH will read each application and advise the agency about its merits. NEH staff comments on matters of fact or on significant issues that otherwise would be missing from these reviews, then makes recommendations to the National Council on the Humanities. The National Council meets at various times during the year to advise the NEH chairman on grants. The chairman takes into account the advice provided by the review process and, by law, makes all funding decisions.

Late applications will not be reviewed.

Award notices

Applicants will be notified by e-mail in April 2010 of the decision. Institutional grants administrators and project directors of successful applications will also receive at that time award documents by mail. Applicants may obtain the evaluations of their applications by sending a letter or e-mail message to NEH, Division of Preservation and Access, Room 411, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506 or preservation@neh.gov.

Administrative requirements

Before submitting an application, applicants should review their responsibilities as an award recipient and the lobbying certification requirement.

Award conditions

The requirements for awards are contained in the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Organizations, any specific terms and conditions contained in the award document, and the applicable OMB circulars governing federal grants management. See Article 34 of the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Organizations for further information.

Reporting Requirements

A schedule of report due dates will be included with the award document.

Final performance reports will be required. Further details can be found in Performance Reporting Requirements (formerly Enclosure 2).

A final Federal Financial Report (SF-425) will be due within ninety days after the end of the award period.

If you have questions about the program, contact:

Humanities Collections and Resources
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506
202-606-8570

If you need help using Grants.gov, contact:

Grants.gov: http://www.grants.gov
Grants.gov help desk: support@grants.gov
Grants.gov customer support tutorials and manuals : http://www.grants.gov/CustomerSupport
Grant.gov support line: 1-800-518-GRANTS (4726)
Grants.gov trouble shooting tips.

Privacy Policy

Information in these guidelines is solicited under the authority of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 956. The principal purpose for which the information will be used is to process the grant application. The information may also be used for statistical research, analysis of trends, and Congressional oversight. Failure to provide the information may result in the delay or rejection of the application.

Application Completion Time

The Office of Management and Budget requires federal agencies to supply information on the time needed to complete forms and also to invite comments on the paperwork burden.NEH estimates that the average time to complete this application is fifteen hours per response. This estimate includes time for reviewing instructions, researching, gathering, and maintaining the information needed, and completing and reviewing the application.

Please send any comments regarding the estimated completion time or any other aspect of this application, including suggestions for reducing the completion time, to the Office of Publications, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC 20506; and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (3136-0134), Washington, DC 20503. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB number.