Fitch Mid-Career Grant Opportunity

In contrast to my customary postings about grant opportunities for organizations, here is one targeted at individuals who have at least 10 years experience working within the historic preservation field: –grace

The James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation will award research grants of up to $25,000 to mid-career professionals who have an academic background, professional experience and an established identity in one or more of the following fields: historic preservation, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, environmental planning, architectural history and the decorative arts.

The Foundation will consider proposals for the research and/or execution of the preservation-related projects in any of these fields.

The grants are not visualized as prizes for past accomplishments, but rather to support innovative original research and creative design.

The grants are intended to promote the practice of historic preservation; the project must demonstrate usefulness to practitioners and the results must be in publishable form.

Contact info@fitchfoundation.org for more information about the grant.  Deadline for applying is Wed., September 16th.

Read about the life’s work of James Fitch. 

 

Maureen represented BCHRC about Grants

Maureen Richards, Bluffton Historical Preservation Society, Inc. Director, volunteered to participate in the conference call on  July 16th  about the Basic Archives Grants and the Basic Archives Processing Grants recently made available through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.  Here is her report:

The conference call was very interesting. There were around 17 participants in total coming from a wide range of backgrounds. I said that I was representing 20 organizations from the Beaufort County Historic Resources Consortium located between Charleston SC and Savannah GA. Here are some notes I took during the call.

 The draft deadline actually continues throughout the month of August. Final Deadline:   October 6, 2009. NHPRC support begins no earlier than July 1, 2010.  Time limit for funding is from 6-24 months

 The NHPRC will consider funding a group project. It is possible to use the same application as we used for CLIR, we just can’t accept both awards if granted.

 Basic: grants fund cataloging projects, backlog description, policy development and preservation planning (including architectural consultants)

 Detailed processing grants fund limited digitization, materials, storage equipment, climate control, staple removal, folder transfers, re-housing of collections

 Basic Processing grants require 50% matching funds. Volunteer time can be included as matching funds and is based on average wages for specific jobs our area. (ie. data entry: $11.50 per hour; moving: $10 per hour). $10-15K can be used to pay a consultant.

 Surveys of records; basic at series collection level; partially processed collections might qualify for a detailed processing grant

 Promotional outreach includes:

            Exhibits (stationary or traveling)            Lectures (traveling)

            Local teachers groups            Training others

            Methods given some press

 It is recommended that we contact the SC SHRAB chairman (Roy Tryon) to find out what they support and send a draft proposal.  [Grace's note:  SC SHRAB is the flow-through agency for the grants.  Besides being the State Archivist, Roy Tryon is also Chairman of the SC SHRAB. ]

Roy H. Tryon
South Carolina Department of Archives and History
8301 Parklane Rd
Columbia, SC 29223
Telephone: 803.896.6120
Fax: 803.896.6138

e-Mail:  tryon@scdah.state.sc.us

Grace’s comments:  Four of our organizations have made filed a pre-proposal for a CLIR grant.  We are awaiting the criticisms of our pre-proposal before we decide whether or not to make a Final Proposal.  Comments are expected within 2 weeks. 

Essentially, the 4 organizations (BCL, BHPS, HBF, Penn Center)  have asked CLIR to fund cataloging of original materials that cover a crucial period of American history, 1844 – 1915.  Our arguments is: In spite of the significant loss of records, important original resources survive for scholarly investigation in our respective institutions.  Collectively, our materials highlight local manifestations of  broader topics in social history, economic history, political history, military history, and cultural history.   From the start of the Bluffton Movement (1844) to the advent of the 20th century, a uniquely different version of what America was and what it should be is documented in our respective holdings.

Exhibit Panels from Natalie, Coastal Discovery

The subject of exhibit panels came up during our meeting on July 15th.  Our colleague, Natalie Hefter, of the Coastal Discovery Museum shares this information about the exhibit panels that Coastal Discovery used for their new exhibits on their boardwalks and Butterfly enclosure.

Aardvark Imaging did the production of our panels.  We used an outside  graphic artist (one here and one out of town) for the designs.   We went with RhinoPanel as our material – it has a nice finish and is extremely durable.  We’re very happy with them thus far.  There are others who can work with Rhino Panels – but I will say that Aardvark was very professional, worked within the budget they sent us – and delivered everything on time.

      http://www.aardvarkimaging.com/index.html

     http://rhinopanels.com/

If you want to know more, please contact Natalie at ph. 843-689-3033, ext. 225 or e-mail her nhefter@coastaldiscovery.org. — grace