Idaho Humanities: Major Grants

The Idaho Humanities Council (IHC) offers Major Grants to support programs that leverage history, culture, and literature to foster public dialogue. These grants, ranging from $1,000 to $7,500, require a draft submission a month before the final application. The IHC aims to engage out-of-school adults by promoting local humanities projects that explore the human experience, support cultural organizations, and facilitate conversations across Idaho.

The Idaho Humanities Council (IHC)
The Idaho Humanities Council (IHC) is a non-profit organization serving as the state-based partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). We are one of 56 state humanities councils funded in part by the federal government through NEH's Federal/State Partnership Office.
The IHC is dedicated to serving Idaho citizens by promoting greater public awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the humanities. The Council accomplishes its mission by awarding grants to organizations statewide, and by working with organizations as partners to develop local humanities projects and programs, and by sponsoring its own Council-conducted programs, such as summer institutes in the humanities for K-12 teachers, library reading/discussion programs in small communities, traveling exhibitions from the Smithsonian Institution, a Humanities Speakers Bureau, Distinguished Humanities Lectures, and other projects and programs limited only by the imagination.
What Are the Humanities and What is their Value?
The Idaho Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities define “the humanities” to include history, literature, philosophy, jurisprudence, cultural anthropology, comparative religion, art history and criticism, music history and other interpretive disciplines that through study yield wisdom.
In the founding legislation for the NEH in 1965, Congress stressed that “Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens.” The humanities are a vehicle to understanding the human experience—the diverse history, traditions, and cultures of the world.
IHC’s Major Grants are focused on supporting programs or projects that draw on history, culture, literature, and the humanities to ignite conversations with the public. The Major Grant is for requests over $1,000 up to $7,500. The IHC requires a draft to be submitted one month prior to the final application, and currently has two cycles per year.
Goals of the Major Grants include:

• Exploring the human experience
• Supporting Idaho’s vibrant cultural organizations across the state
• Creating conversations between Idahoans
• Examples of projects include:
• Exhibits
• Local history projects
• Discussions
• Planning for humanities focused programs
• Discussion programs
• Currently, the IHC’s target audience is the out-of-school adult public.

Eligibility

Any non-profit or government agency can apply.