The Public Humanities Projects program supports projects that bring the ideas of the humanities to life for general audiences through public programming.  Projects must engage humanities scholarship to analyze significant themes in disciplines such as history, literature, ethics, and art history. Awards support projects that are intended to reach broad and diverse public audiences in non-classroom settings in the United States. Projects should engage with ideas that are accessible to the general public and employ appealing interpretive formats.

All projects must focus on one of the following topic areas:

• The 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence

• American Military Valor

• The American Dream and Economic Freedom

• America’s Role on a Global Scale

Public Humanities Projects supports two categories, Historic Places and Exhibitions, at two funding levels (Planning and Implementation). Proposed projects may include complementary components: for example, a museum exhibition might be accompanied by a website or mobile app.

Projects may be international (but must include audiences in the US and grant funds may not be used to support presentation of content to audiences outside the US), national, regional, or local in focus and should reach a broad public audience. We welcome projects tailored to particular groups, such as families, youth (including K-12 students in informal educational settings), underserved communities, and veterans.

Small and mid-sized organizations are encouraged to apply if their projects address topics of regional or national relevance by drawing connections to broad themes or historical questions. Award amounts offered to successful applicants will reflect the project’s scope and the size of its expected audiences.