Assistance program
Historic Preservation Fund Grants-in-Aid for Competitive Grants
$65.6 Million committed in FY2024–FY2026
- Agency
- National Park Service, Interior, Department of the
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 15.966
- What it does
- The objectives of the competitive grant programs under this Assistance Listing are broad but are all generally intended to provide funding to document and preserve cultural resources that are important to American history. Following Congressional guidance, specific grant programs emphasize social, cultural, or historic themes and target funding to historic events like the struggle for civil and equal rights in the United States, documenting and preserving the stories of underrepresented communities, or preserving sites associated with the founding of the nation. Examples of grant programs could include: African American Civil Rights, Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization, History of Equal Rights, Semiquincentennial, Underrepresented Communities, Tribal Heritage, and future competitive grant programs as may be created by Congress.
- Who benefits
- State, local, tribal, and territorial governments, nonprofits, and the Freely Associated States (the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia). In limited circumstances and when authorized by Congress, individuals and federal agencies may be eligible.
- Who applies
- Eligible applicants are defined as applicants in either appropriations law or approved spending plans developed for the programs. Eligible projects must be for sites listed in or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. If not listed, projects must prepare a nomination and secure listing by the NPS prior to the completion of the grant project. State governments, territorial governments, units of local government, Certified Local Governments, public institutions of higher education, the District of Columbia government, nonprofits, Federally recognized Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, Native Hawaiian Organizations, and 3 specific foreign countries (the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia). Some programs may not be open to all these entities dependent on Congressional direction. In limited circumstances and when authorized by Congress, individuals and federal agencies may be eligible.
- Authorized by
- 54 U.S.C. § 3029
- 54 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments