WV Humanities: Minigrants

Overview

_Note: The West Virginia Humanities Council is sorry to report that, due to federally mandated cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), our statewide grantmaking is suspended immediately.
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West Virginia Humanities Council

The West Virginia Humanities Council offers a variety of matching grants to nonprofit organizations that provide public humanities programming for West Virginia audiences.

What are the Humanities?

The humanities represent a group of academic disciplines that have traditionally been concerned with values, ideas and choices. The humanities provide a framework for analyzing the human condition – for making sense of our roles in contemporary society. The term humanities includes the following:

* Language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, theory and criticism of the arts; those aspects of social sciences that have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to our diverse heritage, traditions and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current condition of national life.

Minigrants

Minigrants support small projects, single events, lectures, small museum exhibits, brochures, consultation needs, and planning for more complex projects. Applicants should allow six weeks between the deadline and the start of the project.

Minigrants have supported projects including workshops by West Virginia authors at Daniels Elementary School in Raleigh County, permanent exhibits at the Entler Hotel museum in Shepherdstown, and a Wayne County quilt trail.

Humanities Scholar

The project must involve at least one humanities scholar, who will directly advise, offer direction on, or otherwise provide substantive contribution to the project. The humanities scholar associated with the project is expected to provide informed oversight regarding content, historical or cultural contexts, factual information, and/or information and research relevant to the project’s content.

As content-specific expertise is the quality a humanities scholar is expected to bring to any project, the appropriate credentials establishing that expertise may vary from project to project. For the purposes of grant applications made to the West Virginia Humanities Council, “humanities scholar” may be understood to mean:

* a credentialed academic scholar in the appropriate content field;
* an expert practitioner in a living tradition upon which the project is centered; or
* a community member with extensive and documented life experience in the content area upon which the project is centered.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* Eligible projects must:
* Be rooted in one or more of the humanities disciplines
* Involve qualified humanities scholars or expert practitioners in the project, as direct advisors 
* Be sponsored by a nonprofit organization (NOTE: not required for Travel Assistance Program grants or Fellowships)
* Provide accurate budget requests, reflecting the actual costs of the project
* Secure dollar-per-dollar matching funds (NOTE: not required for Travel Assistance Program grants or Fellowships)
* Provide a 25% cash match (for grant requests of more than $2,000)
* Provide a comprehensive and adequate plan for publicity and dissemination of information
* Be open to or accessible by public audiences
* Provide a plan to evaluate the effectiveness of the project
* Comply with federal nondiscrimination statutes
* Allowable expenses for humanities projects and programs include the following:
* Honoraria for scholars
* Project-specific (i.e. non-regular) staff salaries
* Travel costs including per diems, mileage and lodging
* Supplies and materials
* Publicity and printing costs
* Postage and telephone costs
* Equipment and facilities rental
* Eligible project types include, but are not limited to:
* Planning grants to bring in experts for project consultation
* Conferences, lectures, and symposia
* Educational school programs
* Brochures and booklets including printing and promotional costs
* Exhibit development and implementation
* Archival projects
* Archaeological projects
* Conference travel (through Travel Assistance Program grants)
* The planning, scripting, and production of audio or video materials, websites, or a newspaper series
* Publications (Publication grants)
* Individual research (Fellowship grants)

Ineligibility

* We cannot fund:
* Projects with little or no humanities content
* Creative and performing arts (associated discussion sessions and educational programs may be eligible)
* Fund-raising events or for-profit projects
* Expenses incurred or paid out before a grant is made
* Projects/activities that have already taken place
* Projects with high admission fees (reasonable admission fees may be allowed and should be discussed with the grants administrator)
* Projects not open or accessible to the public
* Purchase of equipment or land
* Building renovation
* Receptions, food, alcohol or entertainment
* Fiscal agent fees (also ineligible as match)
* Academic courses for credit
* History Alive! presentations
* Requests that advocate partisan political or social action
* Historic Highway markers
* Permanent staffing or regular staff salaries