America's Media Makers

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The Division of Public Programs offers support for a wide range of public humanities programs that engage citizens in thoughtful reflection upon culture, identity and history. Projects must be well-grounded in scholarship and illuminate ideas and insights central to the humanities. Grants for America’s Media Makers support projects in a range of formats, including interactive digital media and radio and television programs that engage the public in the humanities thatand explore stories, ideas, and beliefs in order to deepen our understanding of our lives and our world. Projects should encourage dialogue, discussion, and civic engagement, and they should foster learning among people of all ages. To that end, the Division of Public Programs urges applicants to consider more than one format for presenting humanities ideas to the public. Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop humanities content and format and to prepare programs for production. These grants cover a wide range of activities that include, but are not limited to, meetings and individual consultations with scholars, research, preliminary interviews, preparation of program scripts, designs for interactivity and digital distribution, and the creation of partnerships for outreach activities and public engagement with the humanities. Development grants should culminate in the refinement of a project’s humanities ideas, and in a script, or a design document for (or a prototype of) digital media components or projects. Development grants should also yield a detailed plan for outreach and public engagement, in collaboration with a partner organization (or organizations). A sample narrative from a successful development grant applications is available under under the Program Resources section of the sidebar on the first page of the guidelines of the guidelines. You may request additional samples by sending an e-mail message to publicpgms@neh.gov. Before applying, applicants must have a solid command of the major humanities scholarship on their subject, have clarified the ideas that the project will consider, and have consulted with a team of scholarly advisers to work out the intellectual issues that the program will explore. Applicants must also have made preliminary decisions about the format and storyline and located essential materials for the program(s). Finally, they must have recruited the appropriate media professionals, especially the producer, writer, or interactive designer. Production grants support the production and distribution of digital media projects, radio and television programs, and related programs that promise to engage the public. Applicants must submit a prototype or storyboard for a digital media project, or a script for a radio or television program, that demonstrates a solid command of the humanities ideas and scholarship related to a subject. Some production grant projects are designated as Chairman’s Special Award projects. These projects are more complex and would be of compelling interest to the general public; they have the capacity to examine important humanities ideas in new ways and promise to reach large audiences. These goals can often be accomplished through combining a variety of program formats, forming creative collaborations among diverse institutions, and expanding the scope and reach of a project. Note that the Chairman’s Special Award is offered only at the production stage, but not at the development stage. See application guidelines for Production Grants.

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