The Latah County Historical Society (LCHS) was awarded $3,500 of CARES Act funding by the Idaho Humanities Council (IHC). The money from the grant originated from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Dulce Kersting-Lark, the director of LCHS, said one of the IHC’s main functions is to take large sums of money granted by the federal government and break it down into manageable sums for smaller organizations across the state, especially those run by volunteers.
“There are not a lot of grants that are often available for specifically administrative costs, so we are always grateful when granting agencies acknowledge that the most costly, but also the most affected portion of almost all nonprofits are the staff members,” Kersting-Lark said. “(The grant) will most likely backfill our payroll.”
Kersting-Lark said the nonprofit will be able to keep employees on payroll, including janitorial and part-time employees, due to this grant. The money will go toward paying staff with minimal hourly cuts.
LCHS staff worked remotely from the beginning of Idaho’s stay-at-home order until June 1. The society was closed to the public during that time. Kersting-Lark said alterations to enable social distancing for employees and visitors in the LCHS office were made in May and the society is currently only open by appointment.
According to the National Council of Nonprofits, IHC represents 4,600 nonprofits and over 475,000 employees and volunteers. The NEH had $30 million to distribute to all 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils, according to its website.
David Pettyjohn, IHC executive director, said about $419,000 was given to IHC for distribution to qualifying organizations throughout Idaho.
“10% of that amount is being used to cover administration of the grants,” Pettyjohn said. “The rest, about $380,000, we are awarding to nonprofits across the state.”
According to IHC’s website, the grants can be used for general operating support, purchase of equipment, virtual humanities programming and costs associated with studying the impact of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of June 11, IHC hasd awarded $122,455 to 25 Idaho organizations with the funding it received from NEH, according to the IHC website.
The amount of money an organization can request is based on its operating budget. IHC uses a tiered system which Pettyjohn said could potentially be the most effective at helping as many organizations as possible throughout the state.
The total expenses of LCHS in 2019 was over $100,000, meaning it was able to apply for up to $5,000 in CARES Act funding from IHC.
“We requested $5,000, but based upon the other requests that came in, (IHC) was really making an effort to try to distribute to as many organizations as possible, so our request was ultimately funded not quite at the level we had requested,” Kersting-Lark said. “We are grateful for the support that we did get from it.”
Anteia McCollum can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @antxiam5
Niki Clark
This is a great article. I like the way you write!!! UCSC also received grant money from the CARES act. So far they have received over 18 million dollars but they are still talking about layoffs is September as the university budget has not bee finalized. I sincerely hope Idaho receives some more funds to keep payrolls going!!!