Museum Collection to Exhibit at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. | P18AS00101

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00101

The grant opportunity, titled "Museum Collection to Exhibit at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site" (Funding Opportunity Number P18AS00101), is a discretionary National Park Service (NPS) funding opportunity offered through a cooperative agreement. It was created on June 26, 2018, with an original application closing date of July 6, 2018. The Department of the Interior, National Park Service is the sponsoring agency, and the listed funding activity category is Natural Resources under CFDA 15.945. The opportunity shows an award ceiling of $140,000, and while the listing notes "Expected Awards: 0," the intent described in the narrative focuses on supporting project work through interns who would assist the site curator.

The core purpose of the project is to bring the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site museum collection back into permanent exhibit inside the historic house museum. The collection had been removed in 2015 to protect it while preservation work was carried out on the house itself. Because historic house museums rely heavily on authentic furnishings and original objects to tell their story, restoring the collection to its proper place is framed as essential to the park's interpretive program. In other words, the objects are not treated as background decor but as the primary interpretive resource used to communicate the life, work, and legacy of Carl Sandburg, aligning directly with the park's mission.

The funded work is structured around bringing in interns to support the curator with the practical, hands-on tasks needed to reinstall a museum collection safely and correctly in a historic setting. While the notice does not list a step-by-step task breakdown, the context strongly implies work such as rehousing and staging objects for return, condition awareness and basic collections handling, coordinating object movements, and assisting with exhibit placement and documentation as the items are reintroduced into the house. Because the collection was removed for protective reasons and is being returned after building-level preservation, the effort is essentially a controlled transition from off-floor storage back to on-floor exhibit, with careful attention to collections care standards and the realities of a historic structure.

A major emphasis of the opportunity is adherence to formal NPS museum and preservation requirements. All work must be completed in accordance with the NPS Museum Handbook and Conserve-O-Grams (the agency's primary guidance for museum collections care and preventive conservation), as well as NPS Director's Orders #19, #24, and #28, along with applicable NPS regulations, policies, legislative history, and established museum standards and procedures. This signals that the project is expected to follow established federal museum practices for handling, documentation, environmental considerations, security, and preservation ethics, rather than treating the reinstall as a simple move-back of household items. The cooperative agreement structure also suggests the NPS anticipates active collaboration and involvement in the project rather than a fully independent contractor-style deliverable.

Eligibility is aimed primarily at nonprofit organizations with IRS 501(c)(3) status that are not institutions of higher education, plus additional eligible entities referenced under an "Others" category (with further clarification typically provided in the full notice). Overall, the opportunity is best understood as a targeted, collections-focused support project: providing resources to staff and manage interns who can help the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site restore its museum collection to public display after preservation work, while meeting the detailed procedural and ethical standards required for federal museum collections.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Museum Collection to Exhibit at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site." and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 26, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 06, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $140,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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