African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Grants
The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund works to advance the broader preservation movement towards a more diverse and equitable representation of American history. Grants showcase the beauty and complexity of Black history and culture in America, while underscoring the urgent need to protect, preserve and interpret these invaluable American assets.
Action Fund grant requirements and deadlines vary. Visit the links below to access the most up-to-date information, as well as for application guidelines and deadlines.
Action Fund National Grant Program
The Action Fund National Grant Program advances ongoing preservation activities for historic places such as sites, museums, and landscapes that represent African American cultural heritage. Funding supports work in four primary areas: Capital Projects, Organizational Capacity Building, Project Planning, and Programming and Interpretation.
- Applications due February 14, 2025
- Guidelines and Application
Conserving Black Modernism
In partnership with the Getty Foundation, the Conserving Black Modernism grant program is designed to empower and equip preservationists and stewards with funding and technical support to preserve the material heritage, innovation, and legacy of modern architectural sites designed by Black architects.
- Applications due March 14, 2025
- Program Information
- Guidelines and Application
Preserving Black Churches
The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, with support from the Lilly Endowment Inc, is investing in historic Black Churches and congregations to reimagine, redesign, and deploy historic preservation to address the institutions’ needs and the cultural assets and stories they steward. We are leveraging historic preservation as a tool for equity and reconciliation and celebrating historic Black Churches as centers of heritage, community, and cultural life.
- Letter of Intent (LOI) due: TBA, Summer 2025
- Full Applications due: TBA
- Program Information
- Guidelines and Eligibility Requirements
Descendant and Family Stewardship Initiative
Supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Action Fund’s Descendant and Family Stewardship Initiative supports descendant community and family-led organizations to be leaders in the physical preservation, interpretative programming, management, and governance of historic African American places.
- Letter of Intent (LOI) due February 24, 2025
- Full Applications due May 8, 2025
- Guidelines and Application
HBCU Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative
This program provides technical assistance and funds new Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plans at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The partnership with National Endowment for the Humanities seeks to empower HBCUs with the resources to protect, preserve, and leverage their historic campuses, buildings, and landscapes, and ensures these symbols inspire and educate future generations.
- Application updates to come
- Program Information
- Guidelines and Application
Learn more about additional National Trust grant programs here.
Action Fund Grant Stories
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We're Saving Places The Power of Preservation -
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund 30 Historic Black Churches Receive $8.5M in Grants -
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund James Weldon Johnson's Writing Cabin Prepares for Spring -
Preserving Black Churches A History of the Black Church in 24 Hats -
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund 5 Sites that Carry a Legacy of Black Joy
This May, for Preservation Month, we’re celebrating the power of place—and the countless ways, big and small, that preservation creates. Preservation Month is our chance to show why our work matters!
Celebrate!