The State Historical Society Of Colorado

The State Historical Society of Colorado, doing business as History Colorado, is a U.S. state government entity operating as a prime recipient of federal grants (96% of awards) in historic preservation, museum operations, and cultural resource stewardship, with a secondary posture as a subrecipient under AmeriCorps programming. The organization holds no federal contract prime awards; its two recent federal contracts — both sole-source purchases from the Natural Resources Conservation Service for data sharing services — total $79,852 in combined potential value and operate outside set-aside categories.

History Colorado's federal footprint centers on grant work from cultural and heritage agencies. The top five customers by award count account for 72% of recent awards, led by the Department of the Interior National Park Service National Office (16 awards), the National Endowment for the Humanities (13 awards), the Department of the Interior National Park Service regional offices (12 awards), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (5 awards), and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (4 awards). The two contract awards — a $67,652 firm-fixed-price definitive contract awarded July 2, 2026, by USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service for state historic preservation office data sharing services through June 30, 2031, and a $12,200 purchase order from NRCS in July 2025 for COMPASS database and ArcGIS access to Colorado's cultural resource inventories — represent the organization's only recent federal contract activity and are sole-source awards recognizing History Colorado as the only responsible source for Colorado's statewide cultural resource databases.

Recent grant work spans historic preservation, interpretation, and community engagement across five agencies and eleven federal programs. Representative recipients include a $1,178,224 National Leadership Grants award (CFDA 45.312) from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, running September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2029, to expand Colorado Affiliates Networks connecting larger state museums with smaller regional organizations; a $164,000 Historic Preservation Fund Grants-in-Aid award (CFDA 15.966) from the National Park Service for window repairs and heating improvements to Fort Garland historic site, running through September 30, 2028; and a $309,887 National Endowment for the Humanities grant for production of Lost Highways Season 5, a podcast about overlooked history of the Rocky Mountain West. History Colorado acts as prime recipient on 66 awards and as subrecipient under AmeriCorps programming (three sub-awards from the Governor's Commission on Community Service, most recently in September 2026, to recruit and supervise AmeriCorps members for the Hands-On History program across multiple museum sites statewide). Activity has remained stable at three to seven awards per year over the past five years; six awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months face recompete exposure. Work is performed in Denver, Colorado, with subordinate field sites and museum operations across the state.