1. Table of contents
   List all parts of the application and, beginning with the summary, number all pages consecutively.
2. Summary
   Provide a one-page, single-spaced summary of the narrative.
3. Narrative description
   Limit the narrative to twelve double-spaced pages with one-inch margins and 12-point font. Use appendices to provide supplementary material.
   Provide a detailed description of the project, consisting of the following sections:
   • Intellectual rationale
     Explain the significance of the project’s use of Picturing America materials. Place the project in its scholarly and educational context, and identify the intended impact on teachers and their students.
   • Content of the project
     Explain the content and structure of the conference or conferences to be offered and how they will encourage teachers to incorporate Picturing America images into the school curriculum. Describe conference sessions, including presentation and discussion topics, and what will be expected of participants. In an appendix, provide a detailed work plan.
   • Project faculty and staff
     Identify key resource personnel for the conference or conferences and follow-up activities. Describe the qualifications and responsibilities of the principal scholars, museum and library professionals, keynote speaker(s), and support staff, and the role that each member of the project team will have in ensuring successful achievement of project goals. Enumeration of personnel should be supported in an appendix by letters of commitment and brief résumés or biographies (of one or two pages). The persons bearing primary intellectual responsibility for the grant activities (i.e., the project directors) should submit full résumés in an appendix.
   • Institutional context
     Briefly describe how the resources (e.g., relevant programs and assets, hosting facilities, options for meals, capacities for outreach) of the participating institution(s) support the project. Applicants should describe the ways in which the conference site will enhance the program, including any plans to take advantage of local collections, architectural heritage, or museum resources as a means of encouraging teachers to use and interpret art in their communities.
   • Eligibility and selection of participants
     Describe how eligible participants will be recruited and selected. For more information on schools that have received the Picturing America portfolio, please consult the interactive map on the NEH website.
   • Professional development of participants
     Describe how the project will help teachers integrate Picturing America into their core subjects. Provide information, if applicable, about the potential for conveying professional development credit equivalency for teachers interested in obtaining such credit from their school district or state.
   • Dissemination and evaluation
     Describe post-conference efforts to extend the community of inquiry by dissemination of project materials and activities. Provide a plan to share conference resources with the targeted region or school district(s) and beyond. All other considerations being equal, NEH will give preference to projects that provide free, online access to materials produced with grant funds.
     Describe how the project will be evaluated. The evaluation plan should include, but need not be limited to, a participant survey to be administered at the close of the conference. Directors should conduct their own assessments of project accomplishments without the involvement of an outside evaluator.
4. Budget
   Provide a budget. A sample budget is available for guidance. All of the items listed must be reasonable, necessary to accomplish project objectives, allowable in terms of the applicable federal cost principles, auditable, and incurred during the grant period. Charges to the project for items such as salaries, fringe benefits, travel, and contractual services must conform to the written policies and established practices of the applicant organization. When indirect costs are charged to the project, care should be taken that expenses included in the organization’s indirect-cost pool are not charged to the project as direct costs.
   Review the following budget instructions in preparing your budget. If you wish, you may attach separate pages with notes to explain any of the budget items in more detail.
   1. Participant stipends
      Stipends for conference participants should be listed here. They should be commensurate with the time commitment expected of the participants and should not exceed $300. (At the discretion of the applicant institution, college or university credit may be awarded to participants who seek it. If any filing fee or tuition is charged, it should be charged directly to those participants wishing to receive credit and should be fixed at the lowest possible rate. Such fees may not be deducted from a participant’s stipend.)
   2. Operating costs
      Item 1: Salaries and wages
      Include all project personnel except consultants who are not employees of the applicant institution. NEH funds may not be used to hire replacement teachers or compensate faculty members for performing their regular duties.
      Item 1a: Project directors are compensated for the time required to conduct the project, including the conferences and follow-up activities. Calculations for compensation should be based on a percentage of academic-year or annual salary.
      Item 1b: List other project faculty or lecturers or professional administrative staff employed by the applicant institution. Depending on their assignments and duties, their compensation may be calculated on the basis of an appropriate percentage of their full-time academic-year or administrative salary or on a per diem basis. The role and duties that the project staff performs should justify the costs charged to the workshop budget.
      Item 1c: List clerical and secretarial support, as well as the support that graduate assistants, if any, will provide. Compensation for support staff may be calculated as a percentage of salary or based on an hourly rate.
      Item 2: Fringe benefits
      Calculate fringe benefits for those individuals employed by the applicant institution and listed on lines 1a, 1b, or 1c. Fringe benefits may include contributions for such items as Social Security, employee insurance, and pension plans. Only those benefits that are not included in an organization’s indirect-cost pool may be shown as direct costs. Also, fringe benefits for clerical, administrative, and part-time personnel may be calculated at different rates than those used for employees on academic-year appointments. The breakdown shown in the budget form should reflect these calculations.
      Item 3: Supplies and materials
      Include the cost of reasonable charges for supplies (e.g., computer and instructional materials) needed for the project. Please note that these costs may be included only if they are not part of the indirect-cost pool.
      Item 4: Services
      Include the cost of duplication and printing, long-distance telephone charges and postage, rental of films and equipment, and subcontracts of any kind. All charges must be essential to the project. (See the section on inadmissible budget items.) If appropriate, justify these modest requests in the optional budget narrative. Include an itemization of subcontract costs.
      Note. The budget should include sufficient funds for duplicating and mailing information and materials about the project to those persons who do not wish to receive them electronically. Project budgets may include a modest amount of funds for publicity efforts to constituencies unique to the specific project.
      Item 5: Consultant fees
      List individuals contributing to the project as speakers, resource scholars, and session leaders. The typical honoraria for visiting scholars range from $350 to $750 per person per day. (Travel and subsistence costs should be entered in budget section 6.)
      Item 6: Professional travel and subsistence
      Travel and subsistence costs for consultants and staff should be calculated in conformity with institutional policy.
      Item 7: Total direct costs
      Total direct costs are calculated by adding items 1 through 6.
   3. Indirect costs (overhead)
      These costs are incurred for common or joint objectives and therefore cannot be readily identified with a specific project or activity of an organization. Items that would be regarded as indirect costs include the salaries of executive officers, the costs of operating and maintaining facilities, local telephone service, office supplies, and accounting and legal services.
      Calculate indirect costs by applying a federally negotiated indirect-cost rate to a distribution base (typically a portion of the direct costs of the project). If your institution already has a federally negotiated indirect-cost rate, please indicate on the budget form the rate, the base, the name of the agency, and the date of the agreement.
      Organizations that wish to include overhead charges in the budget but do not have a current federally negotiated indirect-cost rate or have not submitted a pending indirect-cost proposal to a federal agency may choose one of the following options:
      1. NEH will not require the formal negotiation of an indirect-cost rate, provided that the charge for indirect costs does not exceed 12 percent of direct costs, less distorting items (including but not limited to capital expenditures, participant stipends, fellowships, and the portion of each individual subgrant or subcontract in excess of $25,000). Applicants who choose this option should understand that they must maintain documentation to support overhead charges claimed as part of project costs
      2. If your organization wishes to use a rate higher than 12 percent, an estimate of the indirect-cost rate and the charges should be provided on the budget form. If the application is approved for funding, instructions will be provided in the award document on how to negotiate an indirect-cost rate with NEH.
      If you choose one of these two options, please indicate on your budget form that you are doing so.
   4. Amount requested from NEH
      Amount requested includes items A, B, and C (Total Project Costs).
   Budget narrative (optional): If needed, include a brief budget narrative explaining projected expenses or other items in the financial information provided on the NEH budget form.
   Inadmissible budget items: The following costs are not allowable and may not appear in project budgets:
   • cost of substitute teachers or compensation for educators performing their regular duties;
   • costs related to the regular activities of the institution;
   • rental of recreational facilities and costs related to social events such as banquets, receptions, and entertainment;
   • tuition fees for participants (See “Participant stipends” above);
   • travel associated with independent scholarly research; or
   • development of education technologies or materials that are solely pedagogical.
5. Appendices
   Include only relevant supplementary materials, such as
   • detailed agendas and work plans;
   • reading lists;
   • full résumé(s) from project director(s);
   • brief résumés or biographies (one or two pages) for other project personnel;
   • letters of commitment from core team members, consulting scholars, library and museum professionals, and administrators from collaborating institutions.
   Each appendix should be identified clearly, listed in the table of contents, and numbered consecutively. The proposal narrative should refer to items included in the appendices.

If you have questions about the program, call 202-606-8500 or send an e-mail message to pascp@neh.gov. You may also send a letter to