American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, acts as a federal grant recipient to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), delivering humanities scholarship, public programming, and digital archival services grounded in its library and manuscript collections. The organization does not hold federal contracts and competes exclusively under grant mechanisms, with 87% of its recent federal awards as a prime grant recipient and 13% as a sub-recipient on collaborative research projects.

The American Philosophical Society's federal funding profile concentrates entirely on the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has funded 12 of the organization's 15 awards in the source data. A single award each comes from the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The organization's recent grant work centers on three capability areas: public humanities programming, postdoctoral and early-career scholarship support, and large-scale digital humanities projects. Representative awards include a $200,210 NEH Promotion of the Humanities Public Programs grant (CFDA 45.164) obligated April 1, 2026, supporting the development and public interpretation of "These Truths: The Declarations of Independence," a scholarly exhibition running April 2026 through January 2027 that will display rarely seen versions of the Declaration of Independence, including Thomas Jefferson's handwritten draft and the chair in which he drafted the document. A $190,000 NEH Promotion of the Humanities Professional Development grant (CFDA 45.163) awarded January 1, 2026, funds two residential summer 2026 workshops titled "America's Forgotten Founders: The Revolutionary City of Philadelphia," each accommodating up to 36 K-12 educators nationally, held on the historic block where the Declaration was adopted. An earlier $302,776 NEH Office of Digital Humanities project grant awarded December 1, 2021, supported digitization of approximately 36,000 pages of Revolutionary Philadelphia manuscript, pamphlet, newspaper, and broadside collections from the American Philosophical Society and the Library Company of Philadelphia, with results accessible through the "Revolutionary City: A Portal to the Nation's Founding" online repository. The organization also received a $123,300 NEH Promotion of the Humanities Research grant (CFDA 45.161) from January 2022 through June 2024 to support a postdoctoral fellowship position conducting research using the Society's collections.

In its sub-recipient role, the American Philosophical Society collaborated on two University of Virginia-led NEH projects: a sub-award beginning February 2026 on the Revolutionary City portal expansion and IndependenceHub content development, with work phased through November 2027; and a sub-award beginning March 2024 on the North American Climate History Project, performing digital editing and data architecture work through February 2026. Combined dollars obligated across all awards total $3.6 million. Activity has been sporadic—one award in 2021, one in 2022, one in 2024, and three in 2026—with two awards reaching completion inside the next twenty-four months.