Funding Opportunity for

Organizations

State and Impact of the Humanities

Maximum award amount

Level 1: Up to $75,000
Level 2: Up to $150,000

Expected Output

Meeting proceedings; Documentation; Data Sets; Peer-reviewed Research; Reports; Toolkits; Conference Presentations; Public-facing publications 

Period of performance

Level 1: Up to 12 months, Level 2: Up to 24 months

The State and Impact of the Humanities program aims to expand our understanding of the role that the humanities play in private, public, and scholarly life by supporting data-grounded research studies that investigate the state, impact, and value of the humanities in the United States.  

For the purposes of this program, the humanities are broadly defined as activities associated with exploring, interpreting, and preserving the diversity of human cultures, ideas, practices, and experiences, past and present. Through a range of projects such as podcasts, documentary films, archival collections, educational programs, and peer-reviewed scholarship, the humanities shape how we think about our past, one another, and our shared future. 

This program will fund research that helps us better understand how and why the humanities matter, and how we can build a stronger, more impactful humanities. 

Project teams may involve one or multiple people and must include at least one humanist. 

Research designs may be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed. Research may draw on a wide variety of data sources and may include humanistic approaches. 

Project activities may include planning, data collection, data analysis, communication, and dissemination. This program does not fund data collection without additional associated analysis. 

Application requirements can be found in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) and Frequently Asked Questions, which are available under Step 1: Review in the Application Instructions tab of this web page. 

Draft proposals may be optionally submitted for NEH staff review in the form of a preliminary project summary, using the template provided under Step 1: Review in the Application Instructions tab of this web page. Project summaries must be submitted as an email attachment by February 14, 2025. 

Applicants are encouraged to review NEH’s “Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence for NEH Grant Proposals,” which may be found under Step 1: Review in the Application Instructions tab. 

A recorded webinar about the State and Impact of the Humanities program is available below:

Click here to register for a live Q&A session on February 4, 2025 at 2 pm Eastern

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Application Instructions

Review your application package

Program Resources

Notice of Funding Opportunity, 2025 (PDF)

Grants.gov application package

Frequently Asked Questions, 2025 (PDF)

Preliminary Project Summary Template

AI Policy

Register for a SAM number and an account on Grants.gov

When you are ready to apply, register for an account with SAM.gov and Grants.gov; both are required. If you already have completed the registrations, make sure they are current. 

Complete your application package

Follow the instructions outlined in the Notice of Funding Opportunity and in the Grants.gov instructions. 

Submit your application package on Grants.gov

You will receive a confirmation from Grants.gov when you’ve successfully submitted your application. Subsequently, you will receive up to five more notices confirming different stages in the application process. Verify that you have received all confirmations. Note that email filters may send these messages to your spam or junk folder.