LOS Angeles County Museum Of Natural History Foundation

The Los Angeles County Museum Of Natural History Foundation Natural History Museum Division operates as a tax-exempt nonprofit recipient of federal grants in biodiversity research, specimen digitization, museum collection infrastructure, and scientific workforce development, with 97% of recent awards as prime recipient. The organization has no federal contract prime footprint but receives project grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Interior National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The museum's federal grant portfolio centers on biological sciences research and museum operations. Representative awards include a $559,979 NSF Division of Environmental Biology project grant (effective June 1, 2026 through May 31, 2029) for collaborative research on soil-associated Cybaeid spiders endemic to the California Floristic Province, combining fieldwork, genomic analysis, and a bioinformatics bootcamp for undergraduate workforce development; a $1,317,921 NSF Division of Biological Infrastructure award (September 15, 2025 through August 31, 2028) for modern cabinetry acquisition and pest mitigation in the ornithology collection, alongside public engagement and workforce training; a $697,690 NSF Division of Environmental Biology collaborative grant (March 15, 2024 through February 29, 2028) on phylogenetic relationships within the crustacean order Peracarida, training thirty undergraduates, three graduate students, and one postdoctoral researcher; and a $258,537 NSF grant (October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2025) for acquisition of a micro computed tomography scanner for research, digitization, and education across the museum's 22 scientific departments. The National Science Foundation accounts for 31 awards across the portfolio. The museum also received a cooperative agreement from the National Park Service Pacific West Region (October 1, 2024 through April 30, 2029) for fieldwork and collections review at Channel Islands National Park related to sensitive cultural sites and NAGPRA repatriation, and a $100,000 Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant for the Bears Ears: Living Land exhibition co-curated with tribal representatives.

Recent activity has declined from seven awards in 2022 to one award in 2025, with 77 total awards in the source window. The museum operates as a sub-recipient on collaborative grants, including a role on a New York Botanical Garden-led paleofloral research project (March 27, 2024) where its La Brea Tar Pits division conducts forest canopy reconstruction analyses and paleobotanical fieldwork, and on a University of California Santa Barbara bee digitization initiative (February 7, 2024) where the museum digitizes and catalogs insect specimens. The organization holds a single federal contract purchase order from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (September 15, 2022, $15,000) for processing and archiving marine specimen heads and post-cranial skeletons. The museum is headquartered at 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, operates the largest natural history collection on the West Coast with over 35 million specimens and artifacts, and serves as a research and educational institution rather than a federal contractor; two awards complete in the next twenty-four months.