Deadline: 13 December 2019

Applications are now open for 2020 U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) Small Grants Competition with an aim to preserve cultural sites or objects that have a historical or cultural significance.

AFCP was established to help countries preserve cultural heritage and to demonstrate U.S. respect for other cultures. The projects selected to receive funding under this program will advance U.S. diplomatic goals and demonstrate the depth of U.S. respect for the cultural heritage of developing countries.

Funding Information

Grants usually range from $10,000 to $200,000 but may be higher for exceptional projects.

Funding Areas

AFCP will recommend for funding those applications that include project activities that adhere to the following guidelines and to international standards for the preservation of cultural heritage. These activities may include:

• CULTURAL SITES: conservation of an ancient or historic building, preservation of an archaeological site, or documentation of cultural sites in a region for preservation purposes
• CULTURAL OBJECTS AND COLLECTIONS: conservation treatment for an object or collection of objects from a museum, site, or similar institution—that includes, but are not limited to, archaeological and ethnographic objects, paintings, sculpture, manuscripts, and general museum conservation needs; needs assessment of a collection with respect to its condition and strategies for improving its state of conservation; inventory of a collection for conservation and protection purposes; the creation of safe environments for storage or display of collections; or specialized training in the care and preservation of collections
• FORMS OF TRADITIONAL CULTURAL EXPRESSION: documentation and audiovisual recording of traditional music, indigenous languages and dance forms for broad dissemination as the means of teaching and further preserving them, or support for training in the preservation of traditional applied arts or crafts in danger of extinction.

Funding Priorities

Applications for projects that directly support one or more of the following will receive additional consideration in FY 2020:

• U.S. treaty or bilateral agreement obligations, such as cultural property agreements
• U.S. Embassy Integrated Country Strategy (ICS) goals
• Disaster risk reduction for cultural heritage in seismically active and other disaster-prone areas
• Post-disaster cultural heritage recovery
• Preservation of inscribed World Heritage sites

Eligibility Criteria

• Proposals are open to eligible applicants from all over Marshall Islands.
• The Center defines eligible project applicants as reputable and accountable non-commercial entities, such as non-governmental organizations, museums, ministries of culture, or similar institutions and organizations, including U.S.-based organizations subject to Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, that are registered and active in SAM.gov and able to demonstrate that they have the requisite experience and capacity to manage projects to preserve cultural heritage.
• AFCP does not award grants to individuals, commercial entities, or to embassies or past award recipients which have not fulfilled the objectives or reporting requirements of previous AFCP awards.

How to Apply

All interested applicants must submit proposals via email at the address given on the website.

For more information, please visit https://mh.usembassy.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/83/Website-post-for-Ambassadors-fund-for-Cultural-Preservation-small-grant.pdf