Arthurdale Heritage Inc.

Arthurdale Heritage Inc., doing business as New Deal Homstead Museum, is a West Virginia-based tax-exempt nonprofit organization that acts as a federal grant recipient to support museum operations, exhibitions, and community programming at the historic Arthurdale site — the nation's first New Deal community. The organization competes for and receives project grants from cultural and community development agencies rather than federal contracts.

Arthurdale Heritage operates as a 501(c)(3) museum and heritage preservation organization headquartered in Arthurdale, West Virginia. The organization's grant footprint centers on museum exhibition design, interpretation modernization, strategic planning, and workforce training. Recent representative grants include a $125,056 Museums for America project award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (CFDA 45.301), issued September 1, 2026, to reimagine and install a new permanent exhibition at the historic site, featuring exhibit fabrication, interactive displays, interpretive panels, digital interactives, and updated museum furniture serving approximately 7,000 annual visitors through August 31, 2027; a $193,400 Humanities Collections and Reference Resources project grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (awarded March 1, 2024, completed January 31, 2025) to assess and modernize museum interpretation; a $146,500 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (awarded September 1, 2023, completed December 31, 2024) to develop strategic plans and emergency preparedness documentation; and an Appalachian Regional Commission workforce training grant (awarded October 1, 2022, completed September 30, 2023). Arthurdale Heritage also received congressional directed spending — a Community Project Funding / Economic Development Initiative award from the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development issued August 13, 2024, with performance extending through August 31, 2032. One grant sub-award on record involves the West Virginia Office of Energy as prime recipient (May 13, 2025), under which Arthurdale Heritage replaced a thirty-year-old HVAC system.

Arthurdale Heritage's customer concentration sits with cultural and humanities agencies. The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services account for 56% of recent awards (five of nine total), with the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Energy rounding out the active agency set. Total obligated dollars across all nine awards in the source data reach $865 thousand, with one award (the HUD Community Project Funding grant) facing ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months. The organization's grant strategy emphasizes exhibitions, interpretation, cultural preservation, and operational resilience for a rural heritage museum serving West Virginia residents and national heritage tourists.