The United States Embassy in Georgia is accepting project abstracts for the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) 2024 Competition.
General Funding Priorities
AFCP will recommend for funding those proposals that follow guidelines and international standards for the preservation of cultural heritage. These activities may include:
CULTURAL SITES: conservation of an ancient or historic building, preservation of an archaeological site (except permanent coverings over archaeological sites), or documentation of cultural sites in a region for preservation purposes.
CULTURAL OBJECTS AND COLLECTIONS: conservation treatment for an object or collection of objects; needs assessment of a collection with respect to its condition and strategies for improving its state of conservation; inventory of a collection for conservation and protection purposes; the creation of safe environments for storage or display of collections; or specialized training in the care and preservation of collections.
FORMS OF TRADITIONAL CULTURAL EXPRESSION: documentation and audiovisual recording of traditional music and dance forms for broad dissemination as the means of teaching and further preserving them, or support for training in the preservation of traditional applied arts or crafts in danger of extinction.
Funding Information
Proposal Solicitation for Cultural Heritage Preservation Projects ($10,000 – $500,000)
Project Preference
In 2024, AFCP will give preference to projects that do one or more of the following:
Support disaster risk reduction for cultural heritage in disaster-prone areas or post-disaster cultural heritage recovery;
Partner, connect with, or feed into other public U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi programs.
Ineligible Activities and Unallowable Costs
Preservation or purchase of privately or commercially owned cultural objects, collections, or real property, including those whose transfer from private or commercial to public ownership, is envisioned, planned, or in the process but not complete at the time of application;
Preservation of natural heritage (physical, biological, and geological formations, paleontological collections, habitats of threatened species of animals and plants, fossils, etc.);
Preservation of hominid or human remains;
Preservation of news media (newspapers, newsreels, radio and TV programs, etc.);
Preservation of published materials available elsewhere (books, periodicals, etc.);
Development of curricula or educational materials for classroom use;
Archaeological excavations or exploratory surveys for research purposes;
Historical research, except in cases where the research is justifiable and integral to the success of the proposed project;
Acquisition or creation of new exhibits, objects, or collections for new or existing museums;
Construction of new buildings, building additions, or permanent coverings (over archaeological sites, for example);
Commissions of new works of art or architecture for commemorative or economic development purposes;
Creation of new or the modern adaptation of existing traditional dances, songs, chants, musical compositions, plays, or other performances;
Creation of replicas or conjectural reconstructions of cultural objects or sites that no longer exist;
Relocation of cultural sites from one physical location to another;
Removal of cultural objects or elements of cultural sites from the country for any reason;
Digitization of cultural objects or collections, unless part of a larger, clearly defined conservation or documentation effort;
Conservation plans or other studies, unless they are one component of a larger project to implement the results of those studies;
Cash reserves, endowments, or revolving funds (funds must be expended within the award period [up to five years] and may not be used to create an endowment or revolving fund);
Costs of fund-raising campaigns;
Contingency, unforeseen, or miscellaneous costs or fees;
Costs of work performed prior to the announcement of the award;
International travel, except in cases where travel is justifiable and integral to the success of the proposed project;
Travel or study outside the host country for professional development;
Individual projects costing less than $10,000;
Independent U.S. projects overseas.
Eligibility Criteria
Include reputable and accountable non-commercial entities, such as non-governmental organizations, museums, ministries of culture, or similar institutions and organizations that are able to demonstrate that they have the requisite experience and capacity to manage projects to preserve cultural heritage.
AFCP does not award grants to individuals, commercial entities, or to past award recipients which have not fulfilled the objectives or reporting requirements of previous AFCP awards.
