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Updated: 1 hour ago

Maine Historical Society director says funding cuts will alter cultural landscape

Courtesy Abigail Jakub, Maine Historical Society A $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities helped the Maine Historical Society raise an additional $1.5 million to build collections storage, management and access capacity.
By Laurie Schreiber

Funding cuts at the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities “will fundamentally alter the landscape for cultural organizations and communities in Maine and throughout the country,” said the executive director of the Maine Historical Society.

“These agencies fund libraries, museums, historical organizations and arts groups that are the fabric of American life,” Steve Bromage wrote earlier this month.

As a private nonprofit, Maine Historical Society maintains a research library, a museum and the Maine Memory Network digital platform.

Catalysts

The society doesn’t currently have an open grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services or the National Endowment for the Humanities, he said, but that’s a rarity for the organization, whose reliance on the funding dates back more than 20 years.

“Each grant requires a significant financial match — they are catalysts that help us leverage two to three times more dollars through private contributions,” he said.

The grants are for specific projects rather than general operating support, but each helps fund key staff, addresses critical mission-related work and enables the society to push forward the mission, its agenda and the organization, he said.

The grants typically cover capacity and infrastructure, collections work or innovations and leadership.

Innovation

Bromage provided examples of the nature and benefits of the funding.

From 2002 through 2017, four 3-year National Leadership Grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and a grant from National Endowment for the Humanities enabled the society to push forward the development of the Maine Memory Network, which documents and shares historical items and other contents provided by historical societies, museums, libraries, town offices and others. The historical society provides technical infrastructure, training and programmatic leadership for the digital platform.

Those grants totaled $2,882,810 over that period; on an annual basis they supported about 10% of the society’s operating budget.

“In the past two decades, no funding partners, public or private, have had as profound an impact on our strategic development and ability to innovate at Maine Historical Society as IMLS and NEH,” he wrote.

From 2016 through 2023, two IMLS and one NEH grant supported major collections initiatives. The grants totaled $625,394. On an annual basis they supported approximately 5% of the society’s operating budget.

Grants from both agencies enabled the society to install solar panels and compact storage at its offsite P.D. Merrill Collections Center, which is on Riverside Street in Portland. The compact storage initiative increased the society’s storage capacity by 40% and the grants enabled it to pay off the mortgage, which helps its operating budget significantly. The Institute of Museum and Library Services challenge grant program awarded $500,000 and required the society to raise three times that amount or $1.5 million.

It’s appropriate to evaluate and refine programs to ensure their focus, effectiveness and efficiency, Bromage said.

“But the ways these cuts are being made is damaging and unnecessarily destructive,” he wrote. “Already, the Maine State Library has had to lay off 13 experienced, knowledgeable public servants whose lives are being upended.”

Earlier this month, the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine was notified that a three-year, $224,143 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services was cancelled.

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