Archives Collaboratives

Applicants should submit a draft proposal prior to making a formal application. Draft materials should include, at minimum, the project narrative and budget, and drafts should be sent directly to the Director of Community Programs Carmen Bolt (carmen.bolt@nara.gov), who will send comments on your proposal in time for you to make changes to a final application. The deadline for drafts in this program is February 18, 2025.

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Application Information

You must use Grants.gov to submit your Proposal (see the right-hand menu for a direct link to the application for this opportunity). All information necessary to apply is included in this announcement, the Application Instructions, and the forms on Grants.gov. If you need the information supplied in an alternative format, please email the NHPRC at nhprc@nara.gov.

In the event that Grants.gov is experiencing technical difficulties that prevent submission, applicants must first attempt to resolve the issue with the Grants.gov Contact Center (call 800-518-4726 or go to www.grants.gov/support). If Grants.gov cannot solve the problem, applicants may request an alternative. To make use of the NHPRC backup system, applicants must contact Jeff de la Concepcion (jeff.delaconcepcion@nara.gov) no later than 3:00 Eastern Time on the day of the deadline with their valid Grants.gov Contact Center trouble-ticket number. Applications that fail to meet deadlines for reasons other than those noted will not be considered for funding.

Preparing Your Application 

In the Grants.gov application package, you will be required to fill out SF-424: Application for Federal Assistance. In the Attachments form, you will need to upload a Project Narrative, a completed copy of the NHPRC Budget Form, and Supplementary Materials. Applications that do not meet both of these criteria will not be considered. 

SF-424: Application for Federal Assistance

Provide all the information requested, including the following items:

• For question #8a, provide your institution's legal name as recorded in your SAM registration. 
• For #8c, be sure to provide the correct UEI as recorded in your SAM registration. 

 

Project Narrative for Planning Grants

The Project Narrative is a description of the proposal. It should be no more than 20 double-spaced pages in 12-pt type on 8.5 x 11 inch paper with standard margins and page numbers.

Please organize your narrative in sections:

Statement of Purpose: In one or two sentences, please state the project's purpose, the collaborating institutions involved, and the amount you are requesting from NHPRC. For example: The [Institution] is seeking a grant of [$ amount] to form a collaborative with [other institutions] to [what purposes]. 

Overview: Share your project's overall purpose, the nature of the collaboration, the potential or committed partners for the collaborative, and how it will increase public access to historical records. Applicants should indicate what role they will play in the structure of the collaborative. 

Plan of Work: Describe the plan of work for the grant period. Describe in detail the types of activities you intend to engage in and the relationships among them. Outline each stage of the planned work. Types of activities that are typical for these projects may include research, outreach, and collaborating to share best practices, tools, and techniques among member organizations; assess institutional strengths and opportunities; and develop plans and management structures for implementing a collaborative project. 

Your plan should demonstrate how the Collaborative will help build capacity at small, diverse, and under-represented archives and communities. 

Project Products: Describe the structure and content of the products you plan to produce for the completed plan. These may include software and documentation; curriculum, training, and other educational products; websites, manuals; conference presentations; and articles; and/or brochures and pamphlets. The NHPRC expects that products will be freely available.

Staff Qualifications: For the people or positions in the proposal, provide a narrative explanation of the qualifications of the staff who will contribute to the success of this project. Demonstrate that the project staff has the skills, background, and experience appropriate to the project. Explain the roles of all staff named in the project budget, both for those already on staff and for those to be hired. Include descriptions of outside project advisors, reviewers, and evaluators. List the names, titles, institutions, phone numbers, and email addresses of the Project Director and key personnel. (Please ensure that the project director listed on this summary is the same person listed in Section 8 (f), of the SF 424. If your institution requires a different contact person on the SF 424, please explain in one sentence.) In the supplementary materials, provide a résumé of not more than two pages per person for all staff named in the project budget. For those staff or consultants to be hired for the project, provide position descriptions or call for consultants. 

Performance Objectives: List six to eight measurable objectives. Focus on quantifiable results that reflect what you intend to complete by the end of the grant period. For planning grants, for example: how many institutions will form the Collaborative and what will their roles be; how will the members communicate and assess strengths and challenges among its members; what measurable improvements are planned for public participation, discovery, or use of historical records; how many people will be reached with outreach programming; how many of the products or tools developed through the project will be available for use by the broader archival and historical publishing communities.

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Project Narrative for Implementation Grants

The Project Narrative is a description of the proposal. It should be no more than 20 double-spaced pages in 12-pt type on 8.5 x 11 inch paper with standard margins and page numbers. Please organize your narrative in sections:

Statement of Purpose: In one or two sentences, please state the project's purpose, the collaborating institutions involved, and the amount you are requesting from NHPRC. For example: The [Institution] is seeking a grant of [$ amount] to form a collaborative with [other institutions] to [what purposes]. 

Overview: Describe the nature of the collaboration, the committed partners for the Collaborative, and how it will increase public access to historical records. Applicants should indicate what role they will play in the structure of the collaborative.

Plan of Work: Describe the plan of work for the grant period. Describe in detail the types of activities you intend to engage in and the relationships among them. Outline each stage of the implementation work and how it fulfills the goals developed during your planning project. Types of activities may include outreach beyond the collaborating organizations to offer information and services; sharing best practices, tools, and techniques among member organizations and others; creating an online repository that makes records from multiple repositories available. 

Your plan of work should demonstrate how the Collaborative will help build capacity at small, diverse, and under-represented archives and communities. 

Project Products: Describe the structure and content of the products you plan to produce for the completed plan. These may include software and documentation; curriculum, training, and other educational products; websites, manuals; conference presentations; and articles; and/or brochures and pamphlets. The NHPRC expects that products will be freely available.

Project Publicity: Describe how you will publicize the project and how you will share any new tools and methods with other institutions to encourage replication and adoption.

Staff Qualifications: For the people or positions in the proposal, provide a narrative explanation of the qualifications of the staff who will contribute to the success of this project. Demonstrate that the project staff has the skills, background, and experience appropriate to the project. Explain the roles of all staff named in the project budget, both for those already on staff and for those to be hired. Include descriptions of outside project advisors, reviewers, and evaluators. List the names, titles, institutions, phone numbers, and email addresses of the Project Director and key personnel. (Please ensure that the project director listed on this summary is the same person listed in Section 8 (f), of the SF 424. If your institution requires a different contact person on the SF 424, please explain in one sentence.) In the supplementary materials, provide a résumé of not more than two pages per person for all staff named in the project budget. For those staff or consultants to be hired for the project, provide position descriptions or call for consultants. 

Performance Objectives: List four to six measurable objectives. Focus on quantifiable results that reflect what you intend to complete by the end of the grant period. For example, how many and what volume of collections will be processed, described, and/or virtually unified; how many items will be digitized, what processes and procedures will be completed to support discovery, access, and use of historical records; how many people will be reached with outreach programming; how many of the products or tools developed through the project will be available for use by the broader archival and historical publishing communities.

 

Supplementary Materials

Prepare up to 20 pages of Supplementary Materials to your Narrative, such as:

• Résumés of named staff members (please use only institutional addresses and phone numbers. No more than two pages per staff member) (required)
• Position descriptions for staff to be hired with grant funds (required, if applicable)
• Detailed work plan charts that supplement the Narrative
• Letters of commitment from all collaborating partners detailing their participation in the project timeline, workplan, and associated responsibilities to the collaboration

If these materials are available on a web site, please provide the URLs.

 

Project Budget

You must submit a budget on the NHPRC Budget Form available on the Application Instructions page. You may include with your application a narrative budget supplement for budget categories that require further detail. Provide specific budget figures, rounding to the nearest dollar.

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Submission Dates and Times

Applicants are encouraged to submit drafts, but you are not required to do so. Drafts should be sent by email to Director of Access Programs Anastacia Scott (anastacia.scott@nara.gov) and should include a narrative and budget. 

Draft Deadline: February 15, 2025

Final Deadline: Applications must be submitted electronically by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time May 7, 2025.

NHPRC support begins no earlier than January 1, 2026.

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Application Review 

The NHPRC staff will acknowledge receipt of the application soon after we receive it. The following evaluation criteria and weights will be used by NHPRC staff to form recommendations:

1. Quality and extent of the potential impact in increasing the capacity of small, diverse, and under-represented archives and repositories. (35 percent)
2. Ability to complete the proposed plan, judged by the qualifications of the staff and reasonableness of the work plan and budget. (35 percent)
3. Transferability of the expected results to the archival and historical communities. (20 percent)
4. Effectiveness of the dissemination plans for the project's results. (10 percent)

 

Review Process

After submitting a proposal, do not discuss the pending application with any Member of the Commission. Commission members must ensure fair and equitable treatment of all applications and do not discuss proposals with individual applicants.

A Panel of Peer Reviewers: We will ask up to 5 external peer reviewers to evaluate and score the proposal.

Applicant Response: Approximately 3 months after the submission deadline, we will provide the Project Director an opportunity to respond to an anonymous copy of the peer reviewers' comments.

Commission Recommendation: After reviewing proposals, panel comments, applicant responses, and evaluations by the Commission staff, the Commission members deliberate and make funding recommendations to the Archivist of the United States, who has final statutory authority and selects award recipients. Throughout this process, all members of the Commission and its staff follow conflict-of-interest rules to assure fair and equal treatment of every application.

 

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Award Administration Information

 

Notification

Grants are contingent upon available appropriated funds. In some cases, the Commission will adjust grant amounts depending upon the number of recommended proposals and total budget. The Commission may recommend that the Archivist approve the proposal and extend an offer of a grant with applicable terms and conditions, or it may recommend rejection of the proposal.

Commission staff will notify applicants of the Archivist’s decision within two weeks following the meeting and will provide anonymous copies of reviewer comments to all applicants.

Successful applicants will receive an informal offer of award and be required to verify their acceptance of general terms and conditions, and complete a statement on their Financial Capability and Accounting Systems.

Once these are received, reviewed and accepted, the NHPRC will issue an official award notice.

 

Administrative Requirements

In order to ensure that you can manage a grant, applicants should review the Federal grant administration rules and regulations governing grants from the NHPRC listed in the Administering an NHPRC Grant section of our website.

 

Reporting

In most cases, award recipients will report on their performance in narrative reports every six months and submit financial reports once a year.