Community Heritage Grants
About CHG
See also: CHG Guidelines
Aim
The Community Heritage Grants Program aims to preserve and provide access to nationally significant, Australian cultural heritage material held by community groups across the country. It does this by providing:
- Grant funding; and
- Intensive preservation and collection management training for first time CHG recipients in Canberra.
Background
Australia's heritage collections are held by a vast range of organisations such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums.
The CHG Program is part of the National Library's effort to promote community-based preservation and collection management activities. Last year, 85 grants were awarded for preservation and access projects involving community held, cultural heritage collections of national significance. Projects funded related to the preservation of materials such as aretfacts, films and sound recordings, books, letters, diaries, manuscripts, photographs, archival records, pictures, maps, electronic files and oral history recordings.
Funding
In 2008 a maximum of $15,000 in funding is available, plus a place for first time CHG recipients at a preservation workshop in Canberra. Allocation of grants are based on the recommendations of the assessors and availability of funds. No applicant can be guaranteed funding nor can any applicant be guaranteed funding to the full amount requested. Funding may vary from year to year and it is not possible to fund all worthwhile projects.
Projects that were funded by the 2007 CHG Program must be completed by 13 November 2008.
Funding Priority
CHG funding priority will be given to the following activities:
- Significance assessments undertaken by an appropriately accredited professional;
- Preservation needs assessments undertaken by a person with appropriate, recognised preservation qualifications, or who qualifies as a professional member of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials (AICCM);
- Implementing recommendations from a preservation and collection survey. Applications seeking funding to undertake preservation and collection improvement activities must clearly demonstrate that a preservation assessment or planning process has been previously carried out; and
- Preservation and collection management training projects to improve the skills of staff and voluteers working with cultural heritage materials.
- Other projects, such as purchasing cataloguing or collection management software.
