Promotion of the Humanities Federal/State Partnership

Federal/State Partnerships promote local, statewide, and regional humanities programming through annual grants to humanities councils in each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Island

Federal/State Partnership brings humanities education, lifelong learning, and public humanities programming to communities across the country by providing general operating support grants to 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils. The councils help NEH realize its two primary strategic goals of advancing knowledge and understanding of the humanities and increasing public awareness of access to, and support for the humanities throughout the United States.

Nonprofit 501(c)(3) state and jurisdictional humanities councils which conform to the requirements of 20 U.S.C. 956(f). See https://www.neh.gov/about/state-humanities-councils.

State and local governments; sponsored organizations; public and private nonprofit institutions/organizations; other public institutions/organizations; Federally recognized Native American Tribal governments; Native American organizations; U.S. jurisdictions minority organizations; and quasi-public nonprofit institutions which apply directly to the state and jurisdictional humanities councils.

Grants may be used to fund local, statewide, and regional humanities projects, subject to guidelines determined by each state and jurisdictional humanities council.

The period of performance is five years. State and jurisdictional humanities councils must expend funds during the first three years.

Each council sets its own guidelines and criteria for assessing proposals, which are widely disseminated within the state. The criteria for state and jurisdictional humanities council funding from NEH are established in the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. Section 950, 956, and by the NEH Office of Federal/State Partnership.

NEH staff review councils' annual plans and activities and outcomes reports. NEH staff and teams of independent reviewers, including scholars and nonprofit professionals, review self-assessments. Based on the information provided in the annual plan and the annual reports submitted following the close of the most recently completed funding period, NEH staff prepare a report on the state and jurisdictional humanities councils and present it to the National Council on the Humanities. The National Council meets at least twice annually to advise the NEH Chair. The Chair considers the advice provided by the review process and, by law, makes all funding decisions.

Variable: Six months.