AHA grants are back

May 19, 2025 — Six weeks after suspending its statewide grantmaking as a result of abrupt federal cuts, the Alabama Humanities Alliance is bringing back limited grant offerings.

Effective immediately, nonprofits across Alabama can once again apply for AHA’s Mini Grants, which offer up to $2,500 for humanities-rich public programming. Learn about these grants — and how to apply for them — at alabamahumanities.org/grants.

All AHA grantmaking was paused April 2, when the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) terminated AHA’s longstanding partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities — eliminating two-thirds of AHA’s annual funding.

Since then, an outpouring of support from individuals, corporations, and foundations has helped preserve the Alabama Humanities Alliance, including major gifts from Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. and from the Federation of State Humanities Councils with support from the Mellon Foundation. This support has now enabled AHA to bring back its Mini Grants.

“We are pleased to resume this support that helps thousands of Alabamians come together as they engage with the humanities in their own communities,” says Chuck Holmes, AHA’s executive director. “We have missed offering these grants as much as our local partners have missed the support. These grants illustrate what AHA is all about. We help Alabamians bring the past to life, explore our shared stories, and better understand this vibrant and complex state we all call home.”

It is AHA’s hope to offer Mini Grants for the rest of 2025, if donor support for the organization continues to sustain AHA’s capacity, Holmes says. AHA’s Major Grants (up to $10,000) and Media Grants (up to $15,000) remain paused. Those painful decisions reflect AHA’s still-tenuous financial situation. For decades, AHA has used federal dollars appropriated by a bipartisan Congress to support grantmaking across the state.

“As happy as we are to offer Mini Grants once again, the reality is that we don’t know what our ability will be to serve Alabamians in 2026, and beyond,” Holmes says. “Like many other organizations dedicated to history, civics, culture, and the arts, we need a hand right now to keep offering dynamic grantmaking and programming to Alabamians statewide.”

To support AHA today, donate at alabamahumanities.org/support.

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How to apply for a Mini Grant

Mini Grants are available on a rolling basis, with deadlines on the first of each month. Designed for flexibility, AHA’s Mini Grants feature a simplified and quicker application process to support a broad range of projects. And Mini Grant applications do not require cost share matches.

All applications submitted by June 1, 2025, will be considered in this first round of resumed grantmaking. Interested applicants are encouraged to read through AHA’s revised grant guidelines, which have been updated following the termination of our NEH partnership.

What can AHA’s Mini Grants help fund?

AHA’s Mini Grants can help fund anything from public history projects, literary festivals, and conferences to art talks, book clubs, traveling exhibits, podcasts, and much, much more.

For reference, a small sampling of AHA’s 2024 Mini Grant recipients includes:

• Alabama Authors Day celebration of the literary arts and Alabama’s natural history (Spanish Fort)
• Alabama Historical Marker enhancement project, led by Troy University, the Encyclopedia of Alabama, and Alabama Heritage magazine (Troy)
• Choctaw County historical bus tours for students to learn about local history and culture (Butler)
• Everybody, an artifact history of disability in America, based on a Smithsonian Institution exhibit (Huntsville)
• ‘History and Art of Quilting’ event exploring Alabama quilt-making (Andalusia)
• Interactive public history project exploring Gullah Geechee culture (Dothan)
• Mobile Medical Museum’s 2024 annual lecture series (Mobile)
• Oral history project documenting the stories of West and North Florence (Florence)
• Retrospective public forum on the City of Demopolis’ civil rights legacy (Demopolis)
• Summer storytelling series highlighting the tradition of Southern oral histories (Guntersville)
• ‘Sunday Afternoons at the Gallery’ speaker series on religious history, military history, and blues music in the Wiregrass (Ozark)
• Traveling exhibit on the old Memphis and Charleston Railroad Bridge connecting the communities of the Shoals (Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, Tuscumbia)

AHA’s grantmaking represents an investment in the cultural fabric of our state — and in the economies of our local communities. In 2024, AHA awarded nearly $380,000 to nonprofits statewide, making local projects available to nearly a quarter-million Alabamians. And 90% of those grant recipients said their community programming would have been impossible without AHA’s support. Since AHA’s founding in 1974, the organization has supplied thousands of grants, totaling more than $13 million.

For full information on AHA’s Mini Grants, visit alabamahumanities.org/grants.

For the latest information on how you can support Alabama Humanities, visit alabamahumanities.org/our-future.

About the Alabama Humanities Alliance
Founded in 1974, the nonprofit and nonpartisan Alabama Humanities Alliance serves as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through our grantmaking and public programming, we promote lifelong learning and impactful storytelling that lifts up our state. We believe the humanities can bring our communities together and help us all see each other as fully human. Learn more at alabamahumanities.org.