Endowment

The primary purpose of the NCPH endowment is to generate earned income that can be used to augment NCPH services to its members, and to public history generally.

Thanks to the contributions of many individuals and a handful of key consulting firms, a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Challenge Grant in 2003, and the continuing generosity of The History Channel, the NCPH endowment is now at a level that is beginning to help expand the organization's programs and operations. As our Long Range Plan–2012 makes clear, NCPH has ambitious goals for the future. Your contribution to the endowment increases the impact of NCPH services, programs, and resources, and it sustains the work of public historians everywhere.

In 2007 the organization began to put the endowment earnings to work. Under development are a new Consultant’s Award and an Outstanding Project Award, and the prize amounts for the Book and the G. Wesley Johnson awards have increased. In addition, starting at the 2008 Louisville Annual Meeting, NCPH will offer five travel awards to encourage graduate students to seek matching funds and attend the conference. Endowment interest in 2008 also will begin to enhance the annual meeting by allowing program committees to increase the diversity of participants and content and to create a vigorous new set of NCPH professional development workshops. Endowment earnings in the near future will be used to better establish NCPH’s identity, both externally and internally. Work is already in its early stages on a new video/DVD profile of public history designed to explain the field to a

Abandoned steel mill as photographed by Don Giles for an online exhibit at the State Museum of Pennsylvania. This project was designed to provoke thought about the current state of heavy industry by showing images of abandoned mills next to active ones, thereby raising questions about the decisions made by people to close or maintain industries that have historically built working class communities and contributed to economic growth.

wide variety of audiences. In 2008 a systematic, professionally developed survey of NCPH members and non-members will be undertaken to learn more about just who are “public historians” and how NCPH can better serve the field.

If you would like to help to continue building the endowment, click here to donate online. NCPH is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation, and your contribution may be tax deductible. If you would like to make an off-line contribution or have any questions, please contact us directly at 317.274.2716 or by email at ncph@iupui.edu.

Thank you for your support!

A challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities makes possible our expanding awards program and other uses of earned income on the NCPH endowment. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.