NEH - Public Impact Projects Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary
Posted June 4, 2025
Application Deadline: July 9, 2025
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Public Programs is accepting applications for the Public Impact Projects Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary program. This program supports cultural organizations in creating and developing scholarship-based public programs that celebrate the people, events, ideas, and legacies related to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The Public Impact Projects Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary program (PIP) aims to renew public engagement with America’s history through projects that focus on the people and events of 1776 and the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. These awards help museums and cultural organizations develop scholarship-based interpretive public humanities programming commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence (or “Semiquincentennial”) in 2026. Applications must demonstrate the project’s relationship to the 250th anniversary. This milestone is an important opportunity for Americans to learn about the full sweep of our nation’s past. Projects may draw connections to the 250th anniversary by, for example, interpreting the legacy of the Declaration or the nation’s founding ideals. Similarly, your project may consider how the revolutionary period shaped the history of your state or locality even if it was not a part of the United States at the time. The goals of PIP are to help your organization identify interpretive connections between your collections and the nation's founding principles; increase your ability to provide interpretive public programs celebrating the 250th and/or chronicling the nation’s progress toward becoming a more perfect union; and enrich your relationships with existing audiences or attract new ones. Projects should have a regional or national reach, or deep engagement with local communities demonstrated through partnerships or involvement of community members. All applications must have strong public humanities interpretation at their core and must be related to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
