Assistance program
Promotion of the Humanities Public Programs
$199.7 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 45.164
- What it does
- Public Programs grants provide opportunities for the American public to explore human history and culture through humanities programs in museums, historical organizations, libraries, community centers, and other gathering places, as well as on public television, radio, the Internet, and other digital media. The Public Humanities Projects program supports projects that bring the ideas of the humanities to life for general audiences. The Media Projects program supports the development, production, and distribution of radio programs, podcasts, documentary films, and documentary film. The Digital Projects for the Public program supports projects that interpret and analyze humanities content in primarily digital platforms and formats. Public Impact Projects helps small and mid-sized cultural organizations expand their public programs.
- Who benefits
- U.S. nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, public and 501(c)(3) accredited institutions of higher education, state and local governmental agencies, and federally recognized Native American Tribal governments.
- Who applies
- Eligible applicants include U.S. nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, public and 501(c)(3) accredited institutions of higher education, state and local governmental agencies, and federally recognized Native American Tribal governments.
- Authorized by
- Public Law 89-209; 20 U.S.C. § 951
- Program site
- http://www.neh.gov/divisions/public ↗
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