The High Desert Museum

The High Desert Museum, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization headquartered in Bend, Oregon, operates as a federal grant recipient focused on museum education, cultural preservation, and humanities programming serving rural communities in the High Desert region. The museum does not hold federal contracts or IDVs; all federal work is grant-funded through prime awards (100% of the portfolio).

The museum's federal grant footprint concentrates in cultural institutions and education programming. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) dominates the customer base, awarding ten grants spanning exhibition development, archival work, collection preservation, and public programming. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) accounts for eight awards focused on professional workforce development, learning hub construction, and community-centered programming. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has funded five awards supporting artist commissioning projects and art installations. Together, these three agencies account for 73% of recent award volume. The Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science each account for three awards. Recent named recipients include a $486,233 IMLS Museums for America (CFDA 45.301) grant for the Center for the High Desert Learning Hub (September 2024–August 2027), a $966,003 IMLS 21st Century Museum Professional Program award (CFDA 45.032) to develop a Community of Practice for rural museum professionals and community partners across the Intermountain West (October 2025–September 2028), a $140,795 NEH Preservation and Access grant (CFDA 45.149) for a documentary video project titled "Our Changing Climate: Cultural Resiliency in Oregon's High Desert" capturing 30 long-form interviews with Native knowledge holders, ranchers, and farmers (March 2025–February 2027), and a $500,000 NEH Implementation Grant for the reinstallation of a 4,500 square-foot permanent exhibition on Indigenous Plateau cultures plus a two-year humanities position (September 2024–February 2028).

The museum also received a federal grant award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) effective August 2025 for a project titled "Laying the Groundwork," which delivers classroom-integrated meaningful watershed education experiences to K-12 students in Central Oregon, with teacher professional development and partnerships with rural schools focused on groundwater systems and climate resilience. Seven awards carry ultimate completion dates within the next twenty-four months, exposing the museum to recompete activity. Recent work extends across exhibition curation, K-12 curriculum development, archival digitization and cataloging of Plateau Indian material culture in collaboration with tribal partners, and design and programming for new learning spaces serving K-12 students, teachers, families, and community groups.