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Tag: neh

NEA & NEH Funding

The AASLH, on top of things as always, has made it very easy to write in to your congressperson about the recent slash in funding for both the NEA and NEH:

AASLH is a proud member of the National Humanities Alliance, and we are asking you to please write your Members of Congress and ask them to support the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) by opposing cuts to the agency’s funding in the FY 2012 House Interior Appropriations bill.

The bill was marked up by the Subcommittee on July 7th and includes $135 million in funding for NEH. This represents a $20 million cut from the FY 2011 level of $155 million and is $11 million less than the President’s budget request of $146 million. The proposed cut to NEH is 13% below the FY 2011 funding level, while overall funding for the Interior Appropriations bill was only reduced by 7%.

The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the bill on Tuesday, July 12. Messages from advocates are needed to help oppose these cuts.

The Alliance has set up a template message for you to customize, including sample bullet points. We strongly encourage you to personalize this message by telling your Representative why NEH and its programs are important to you, your institution, your field, your state, and/or district.

  • If you have received or worked on an NEH grant, please consider the local or long-term impact of this funding.
  • Citing specific accomplishments can be especially helpful (e.g. numbers of students taught, workshop participants, federal dollars leveraged, program viewers, collections protected, awards received, articles published).
  • You may also wish to indicate what would be lost without this funding.

Take Action Now! Click here to read the full message from the Alliance and to contact your Representative Now!

Museum Advocacy

This seems sadly apropos for a week in which funding for the NEA and NEH has been cut again. AAM is doing two free museum advocacy webinars next week.

Two FREE Upcoming Advocacy Programs – July 12 and July 13

AAM will offer two FREE programs next week, and we invite you to participate:

August is Congress’s District Work Period: Now’s the Time to Plan a Site Visit
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 2pm EDT
Members of Congress typically spend the entire month of August back home, meeting with constituents and doing site visits. This is the perfect time to arrange a visit to your museum! We’ll show you how easy it is to set up a meeting, a site visit, or another event involving your elected officials. And we (almost) guarantee that your elected officials will jump at the chance to visit your museum.
Register now or learn more about AAM’s Online Advocacy Training Series.

Museum Benchmarking Online Demonstration
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 2pm EDT
Want to see how your museum compares with others while also creating meaningful advocacy data? AAM will demonstrate its new benchmarking tool – Museum Benchmarking Online (MBO) – the 21st century successor to AAM’s Museum Financial Information survey, long considered the most comprehensive source of data about America’s museums. MBO is easy to use, totally secure, and fully online. Museums can use it to generate instant, customized reports to help make their case.
Register now or visit www.aam-us.org/MBO to learn more.

“AAM’s new online benchmarking is a powerful tool for strategic planning, board and funder presentations, and public communication efforts,” said AAM President Ford W. Bell. “Museums that can compare themselves to other similarly structured museums will have a competitive advantage in making their case to elected officials, foundations, educators, and the public. I invite my colleagues across the museum field to join us for these free webinars.”

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