NEH and Sustaining Cultural Collections

Dumbarton House, National Society of the Colonial Dames of
America, recipient of an NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Grant
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"Explore the Human Endeavor": the tagline reminds us that The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is about understanding ourselves and becoming our best selves individually and collectively.

And it does this work from the trenches all the way up to full public engagement. You might not realize the range of its achievements:

• Support teachers learning to teach more effectively and broadly
• Saving energy in museums and historic sites
• Caring for and sharing material culture
• Understanding past events and actions
• Engaging newcomers and old-timers and everyone in between.

What we've learned and done in the past teaches us so much about our capabilities, and our capacity for continuous improvement. That includes the study of how we do what we do in the museum field. The Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections  (SCHC) work is a featured topic in two parts (Part 1 and Part II) at the National Endowment for the Humanities. There is a summary from the SCHC session at the American Alliance of Museums' annual conference in 2016.

In helping us care for and share collections that illustrate our culture, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports us all -- whatever our backgrounds.