Building Preservation Capacity: New NEH-Funded Opportunities from CCAHA

In January, CCAHA was awarded a generous Preservation and Access Education and Training Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This two-year funding will allow us to expand our national preservation services, ensuring that we can continue to provide our planning assistance and educational offerings to a broad audience of cultural heritage organizations. With this support, our Preservation Services department will provide webinars, online courses, and targeted training for professionals and volunteers who care for cultural heritage collections. We will also work one-on-one with small to medium-sized collecting organizations to support them in caring for and managing their collections, ensuring that preservation knowledge and skills reach organizations of all different types across the county.

Through CCAHA's Collections Care Capacity Building Program, organizations will be able to apply to a targeted track of programming which includes the topics of Foundational Planning, Preservation Overview, Emergency Preparedness, Collections Space Management, and Digital Collections. Within each track, organizations can select two choices from the options of receiving an assessment, creating a plan, and participating in a training session. These topical tracks provide sites with a comprehensive scope of services that flows logically to help meet their demonstrated priorities and needs. Applications for this program will open at the beginning of May 2026 for the first round of sties. Sites will be selected with input from an advisory committee made up of individuals in the cultural heritage field, many of whom have participated in CCAHA assessments in the past.

This program will expand the scope of many of our previous assessment and planning offerings, including digital preservation and collections space management services. Digital Archives Specialist, Kaitlyn Pettengill, said, "I'm eager to expand CCAHA's digital preservation services and support organizations as they work through decisions around caring for their digital materials." Preservation Specialist, Katie Lowe, said, "We've known for a while that space is a huge issue at most collecting organizations, and it's so exciting to be part of the solution in a way that feels practical and achievable for our partners."

Support from the NEH will also allow CCAHA to continue regularly presenting free webinars on a variety of preservation and conservation topics. CCAHA strives to provide webinars on topics most pertinent to the field, particularly ones that have been requestion through feedback by webinar audiences. These sessions address both theoretical topics and practical skills, hoping to help bridge skill gaps that individuals in collections care roles, whether professionals or volunteers, might face. The first of these webinars will be about textile preservation, presented by CCAHA board member (and textile conservator) Annabelle Camp. Additionally, CCAHA will present four low-cost, online courses over the course of the grant period, allowing participants to receive even more targeted training in topics including materials preservation, preservation planning, housing solutions, and digitization.

The grant will also allow us to launch new initiatives, including a pilot program providing graduate students in museum studies and library science with practical preservation experience. Through this practicum, we will strive to bring additional hands-on training and experience to participants, understanding that the knowledge of preservation best practices is vital to successfully caring for collections. DHPSNY Program Manager, Amanda Murray, who will serve as project coordinator for the practicum, said, "our goal for this initiative is to create a practicum program that provides hand-on practical preservation training, so that students gain first-hand experience in preservation best practices and are provided a strong foundation for success as they care for collections."

This grant is part of NEH's latest funding cycle, which distributed $75.1 million to 84 humanities projects. We are honored to be among just 10 projects awarded a Preservation and Access Education and Training Grant and applaud all the organizations recognized in this funding round for their important work supporting cultural heritage. Director of Preservation Services, Dyani Feige, said, "It's very exciting to be able to connect with collecting organizations, particularly those small or medium-sized ones, to learn more about their collections and advocate for their preservation needs. I find exploring all of these different subjects and materials held by institutions throughout the country one of the most gratifying parts of my job, particularly when I'm able to help them along the way."