State Board Programming Grants

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 resolve the issue with the Grants.gov Support Center (call 1-800-518-4726 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 Support 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 and a completed copy of the NHPRC Budget Form.

 

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. 
• For #15, provide the following title for your application: [State] Board Grant 2026-27. 
• For #17, provide a start date of January 1, 2026 and end date of December 31, 2027.

 

Project Narrative

Your narrative should be no more than 22 pages, single-spaced, with a standard font at 12pt. Pages should conform to standard letter size and use 1-inch margins. Use page numbers and observe the suggested page counts for each section. The narrative must be submitted as a PDF.

The audience for your narrative will be NHPRC personnel and a panel of reviewers from outside the agency. You can assume that all readers have general familiarity with the archival field, but remember that they may not have any prior knowledge of your SHRAB or familiarity with your state. See the Application Review section (below) for more information, including the evaluation criteria that will be used to assess your application.

 

INTRODUCTION (1 page)

Provide the name of your SHRAB and links to the following pages on its website: the home page, a list of current board members, and a strategic plan (if one exists). Then list any key personnel on this project, along with titles, email addresses, and a 2-3 sentence biographical statement for each. Indicate which two persons would be acting as the Project Director and the Grant Administrator for a resulting NHPRC award; these must be two different individuals and will be responsible for submitting performance reports and financial reports, respectively.

 

STATE OVERVIEW (2-3 pages)

Use this section to introduce reviewers to any aspects of your state that inform the work of your SHRAB. Include any topics you would want reviewers to understand as they read your application. You might give attention to your state’s population and social demographics; government and economy; geography and topography; or any recent natural disasters and recovery efforts. You could discuss any important archival or historical work being done across the state; sites of significant historical events and ongoing work relating to them; and any current or recent events whose documentation warrants preservation for future use. Finally, you could provide information about the archival repositories in your state and your understanding of their challenges and needs.

The State Overview does not need to discuss how your SHRAB might attend to every point mentioned; rather, it is meant to give reviewers important context for understanding the needs of your constituents and the priorities that guide your work.

 

SHRAB OVERVIEW (2-3 pages)

Use this section to provide any background information about your SHRAB that might be useful to reviewers. Mention any laws, regulations, or institutional structures that shape the scope of your work and how you approach it. Describe the work your SHRAB has accomplished in the past one or two years and your general priorities for the coming years. Provide specific examples of regranting, professional development, and/or consultation services that the SHRAB has executed. If your SHRAB is emerging from a period of inactivity (or for the first time), you can discuss any challenges involved and how you plan to sustain SHRAB operations in both the near- and long-term. All SHRABs should discuss their goals for the award period and how they relate to any strategic planning. Conclude with a description of your methods for measuring success, evaluating outcomes, and sharing results with the larger profession.

 

FUNDING REQUESTS (3-15 pages, as needed)

In this section, you will describe all the activities for which you are requesting funds across the four supported categories: SHRAB Administration, Regranting, Professional Development, and Consultation Services. This section should align clearly with your NHPRC Budget Form. 

Please discuss each category in the prescribed order and with a top-line funding request in each category. If you are not requesting funds in a particular category, simply indicate that “No funds are requested.” See the Supported Activities and Costs section for programmatic guidelines.
 

(1) SHRAB Administration 

This subsection should be structured as an annotated list of activities and expenses for which you are requesting support. For each entry, provide the activity and funding amount in bold type, followed by an appropriate description and an explanation of how you calculated the request. Basic expenses may only need a few sentences of justification; larger projects may warrant several paragraphs.

 

(2) Regranting 

Provide an overview of your planned regranting competition, including the intended duration and financial value of your subawards. Describe how you will publicize the competition and what you will ask of applicants. Explain how, and by whom, the applications will be reviewed and ultimately selected, including any formal evaluation criteria. Mention how you will attend to issues of fairness or equity in soliciting and reviewing your applications. If you wish to use a portion of your regranting funds for noncompetitive subawards, explain why and how you plan to administer those funds appropriately. Afterward, discuss how you plan to monitor and evaluate your subawards. Tell us how you will publicize the projects you support and how the awarded repositories plan to connect with researchers about their award products.

Finally, confirm that you agree to collect and provide to NHPRC all required information about each of your subawards. This will include: the repository’s name, Congressional district, and UEI; a primary contact’s name and email address; the subaward amount; a short description of the project; and a funding justification, based on impact or historical significance. For historical records projects, you must also report the volume of archival material involved (in cubic feet for physical records and number of files for digitized scans). For capacity-building projects, you will need to provide a quantified list of other products, such as the supplies or equipment purchased.
 

(3) Professional Development

You may propose one or more Professional Development projects. For each project, describe the training opportunity and total cost. Clearly state why and for whom the opportunity is needed, and the potential impact it would have on participants and their employers. Provide details on how you will promote your professional development opportunities, and any strategies you have to involve participants across your state.

If you propose to issue scholarships to individuals, explain how you will select your scholarship recipients. Will you pre-select an opportunity and provide individuals with funds to attend, or, conversely, will you select your recipients and provide them with funds to attend an event of their own choosing? In any case, provide a rationale for your program’s design and for the financial value of your scholarships.

If your SHRAB proposes to coordinate a training opportunity itself, alone or in a partnership with a third party, discuss the goals of the program, the delivery method, and any logistical considerations. Explain who will be involved in designing the material and how their expertise relates to the training content. Elaborate on your methods for selecting participants and soliciting their feedback. Break down the top line budget request by expense type, such as speakers’ fees, materials, etc. If you are planning a multi-day event, be sure to provide details that are appropriate to the larger scope of your project. 

 

(4) Consultation Services

In this section, you may propose one project to provide consultation services to repositories across your state. Explain the nature of the consultation service, the reasons it is needed, and the logistics of how it will be performed for participants. Specify who will be providing consultations (e.g. Board members, a roving archivist, etc.) and explain how their experience qualifies them for that task. If you will be hiring for a new position with award funds, explain how and by what date you plan to recruit a qualified person. 

Next, describe how you will publicize the opportunity for participants and what they must do to be considered. Explain how, and by whom, participants will be selected, including any Board priorities or formal evaluation criteria. Describe what participants will receive from your service, both in terms of material products and immaterial outcomes. Confirm that you agree to collect and provide to NHPRC all required information about each of your participating repositories, including their name, Congressional district, and a summary of your work with them.

End with a discussion of what work will be done once all consultations have been performed. Describe how you will evaluate the success of your project. Explain how you might share results with the larger field or contribute to ongoing discussions about best practices.  
 

Project Budget Form

You must submit a completed NHPRC Budget Form (found on the Application Instructions page) as an attachment. Note that the form itself contains additional instructions. Provide specific budget figures, rounding to the nearest dollar.

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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 and other reviewers to form recommendations: 

1. The clarity and soundness of the application’s narrative and budget. (25 percent)
2. The responsiveness of the proposed activities to the needs of archival repositories and records custodians across the applicant’s state. (25 percent)
3. The quality of the proposed programming, including its organization, reach, and accessibility.  (25 percent)
4. The likelihood that the proposed work will be successfully completed, and that results will be appropriately evaluated and shared among the field. (25 percent)

 

Review Process

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

Your proposal will be reviewed by: 

A Panel of Peer Reviewers: We will ask up to 5 peer reviewers to evaluate all of the proposals that we receive.

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 

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 outlining the steps that must be accomplished to qualify for the award. Those steps include verification of their acceptance of general terms and conditions, completion of a survey on their Financial Capability and Accounting Systems, and finalization of performance objectives for their project. 

 

Administrative Requirements

In order to ensure that you can manage a grant, applicants should review the rules and regulations listed in the Administering an NHPRC Grant webpage.

 

Reporting

Award recipients will report on their performance in narrative reports every six months and submit financial reports once a year and after its conclusion. Failure to comply with reporting requirements will jeopardize your consideration for funding in future opportunities.