CSA Angels Project Grant

The CSA Angels Project, initiated in 2006, provides critical conservation and curatorial support to small institutions with costume collections in proximity to the CSA National Symposium. Each year, one grant is awarded to enhance collection care, encourage volunteer engagement, and ensure preservation of these important cultural artifacts. Institutions must meet specific eligibility criteria, including being a non-profit organization with a limited budget and staff, to qualify for this valuable assistance and training opportunity.

Background
The CSA Angels Project, which first took place in 2006, supports a deserving collection located in or near the host city of that year’s CSA National Symposium. The site is selected by the Angels Project leadership, who work with those at the collection to develop a workable plan for a one-day intensive project that meets the collection’s most pressing needs. Donations of supplies are solicited from the museum industry, and the CSA Endowment purchases small equipment and supplies worth up to $2,500 for the chosen site. Staff and volunteers of the collection are provided with basic training in museum standards of care for costume and accessories collections, and CSA members volunteer to provide expertise and additional human resources to document, catalogue, photograph, label, and store objects from the textile and costume collection. If needed, conservation treatment will also be provided on premises.
Supporters of the institution generally help by providing food, overnight accommodation and travel to and from the symposium hotel for the CSA team. One Angels Project grant is awarded each year.
Purpose
The CSA Angels Project is a one-day event, held each year near the site of the CSA National Symposium, which provides conservation, storage and curatorial assistance to a costume collection at a small institution. The project also affords CSA members who volunteer the opportunity to acquire and practice collection care, management skills, and to work in a team with other CSA members to help preserve a deserving costume collection.

Eligibility

Applications for the 2025 Angels Project will open in the summer of 2024. Applying institutions must be located in the area of Los Angeles, California.Institutions applying for a grant must meet the following requirements:Be a small museum, historical society, historic house or sites, or other similar institution;Have a collection of tangible costume objects;Have a very limited budget ($250,000 or less) and staff (5 or fewer) to support the costume collection who perform multiple responsibilities;Utilize volunteers to perform key staff functions;Be a non-profit organization as recognized under IRS Section 501;Be regularly open to the public for a minimum of forty days a year;Have a work space large enough to accommodate the Angels on the workday;Propose a project relating to maintaining the costume and textile collection;Be located within a forty-five minute drive of the CSA symposium hotel:To accept a grant, an institution must be or become an Institutional Member of the CSA or have an active staff member who is an Individual CSA Member.
You must be a member of this organization to apply for this award - become a member. To accept a grant, an institution must be or become an Institutional Member of the Costume Society of America (CSA) or have an active staff member who is an Individual CSA Member.

Ineligibility

This grant does not permit an “overhead” or “operational cut” that many colleges and universities typically take from grant funds they receive.