 Hey everyone, we're gonna get started in just a moment. We're just waiting for everyone to see a few more people enter the room. All right, Tiffany, if you're ready, I think we can go ahead and start. Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to our informational webinar on preserving black churches grant program. I am Tiffany Talbert, Senior Director for Preservation of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund here at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I'm joined today by my colleagues, Diana Maxwell, Associate Director of Grants and Priya Shahi, Associate Director of Content, and we will be providing an overview of the newest National Trust grant program, its guidelines and how to apply. Before I begin, please be aware we will take questions from the audience during this webinar. If you would like to submit a question, please use the question and answer feature in our webinar platform. Priya will be monitoring the submitted questions and facilitate answers later in the webinar. Only questions submitted via the question and answer feature will be reviewed, so please do not enter questions into the chat. Over the course of the webinar, we will cover the following items and provide information to you all. This will include an overview of preserving black churches and specifically the grant process which is currently open for letter of intent applications. We will discuss details of the eligibility criteria for applicants and projects, grant guidelines, and the funding categories. Also, we will give guidance on how to apply for a grant using the National Trust grant system and to receive assistance with your applications. And again, there will be time for questions but so you can submit them at any time during the webinar, again using the question and answer feature. So let's get started with an overview of preserving black churches. Preserving black churches is a project of the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. In November of 2017, the National Trust for Historic Preservation launched the Action Fund as a $25 million campaign to support 150 historic places that have been overlooked in American history and represent centuries of African-American activism, achievement, and resilience. Since then, the Action Fund has grown and launched multiple projects such as the HVCU Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative, supported national advocacy campaigns focused on historic sites such as the Nina Simone Childhood Home, the John and Alice Coltrane Home, and sites associated with the legacy of Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley. Through our national grant program, the Action Fund has also funded 160 historic African-American places and invested more than $12.4 million to help preserve landscapes and buildings imbued with Black life, humanity, and cultural heritage. To preserve and uplift America's historic places with support from the Lilly Endowment Incorporated, the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is investing in preserving historic Black churches to help historic Black churches and congregations reimagine, redesign, and deploy historic preservation to address the institution's needs and cultural assets and stories they steward. In honor of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Action Fund announced preserving Black churches this past January. The announcement was meant to not only highlight the creation of this extraordinary program, but also recognize the important connection of the Black church, the continuing struggle for civil rights and social justice in this country, as well as acknowledge the role Black religious leaders, both men and women, such as Dr. King, Julia A. Foote, Reverend Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Nanny Helen Burroughs, and the late Congressman John Lewis have played in advancing the cause for social justice. In his book, The Black Church, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., says, no pillar the African-American community has been more central to its history, identity, and social justice vision than the Black church. They are the oldest institutions created and controlled by African-Americans and the historic buildings that house these congregations are a living testament to the achievements and resiliency of generations in the face of a racialized and inequitable society. We here at the National Trust and the Action Fund know that these places continue to inform and shape Black identity today and are foundational to Black religious, political, economic, and social life. They serve as houses of worship, safe havens, social centers, and cultural repositories. They provide all manner of vital services and space for community programs that uplift the broader social, economic, and cultural health of these communities. So as with this spirit preserving Black churches was conceived and is intended to work to ensure the legacy this legacy is maintained. So what is preserving Black churches? Again, with the support of the Lilly Endowment, preserving Black churches is a three-year pilot project to advance preservation strategies that model and strengthen stewardship, asset management, interpretation, programming, and fundraising activities of historic Black churches. Specifically over the next few years, this project will establish the reason we're here today, a new national grant fund to direct funding to historic Black churches for capital, staffing, programming, interpretation, and operations. We intend to provide grants over the next few years to historic Black churches, both with active congregations and non-active congregations. As is the purpose of this webinar today, I will show more specific details about this program shortly. We also intend to create a rapid response and emergency grant fund to address imminent threats to Black churches. More information on this resource will be available in the coming months as we progress through the program. We also have two special resource focuses underneath the program. First, we will provide targeted technical assistance and support to Black churches serving as sites of social justice and sites of civil rights. These are Black churches that represent resilience and agency in the face of historical racial violence, such as Chicago's Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, the site of Emmett Till's 1955 extended visitation and funeral. The goal for this work is to maximize the economic value of heritage environments, foster safe spaces for healing and truth-telling, and create greater potential for increased philanthropic investment and earned income. Next, in the early 1960s, Alabama, and in particular cities in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma were the epicenter of the civil rights movement. In order to preserve this legacy, we will work with partners and stakeholders in Alabama to model innovative stewardship strategies and build preservation capacity for Alabama's historic civil rights churches so that we can ensure they continue to serve the social, political, and spiritual needs of their surrounding communities. And lastly, with all this work, we will amplify historic Black churches through digital documentation, storytelling, and media promotion. This work will also support by our marketing team here at The Trust and with our existing Action Fund Fellows Program. I want to share that preserving Black churches joins a strong foundation of work that National Trust has done in support of religious institutions and churches across the country. So this program joins our existing programs such as National Fund for Sacred Places and the Preservation Fund as another strong resource available to support historic churches, congregations, and places of worship across the country. So now the purpose of this webinar is to provide guidance on the preserving Black churches grant program. The grant cycle is currently open and we're accepting letter of intent applications which are due September 2nd. The overall purpose of grants from preserving Black churches is to preserve historic houses of worship either with active or non-active congregations. The grants are intended to advance ongoing preservation activities while strengthening the capacity for historic congregations and preservation and community organizations to steward, manage, and better utilize their historic structures. The grants are available to entities representing historic Black churches. This includes either the historic Black church itself and or the church, excuse me, the historic Black church itself, the church does not have to be a 501C3 entity but will need to provide a federal tax ID number to apply. Also 501C3 not-for-profit organizations are eligible and that includes organizations directly connected to historic Black churches or such preservation foundations, FIMS groups, and societies as well as community organizations. And also public agencies are eligible to apply including municipalities, public colleges and universities, and state governments. Grant awards through Preserving Black churches will range from $50,000 to $200,000 and eligible projects must fall under one of the five funding categories which includes capital projects, endowment and financial sustainability, organizational capacity and operations, programming and interpretation and project planning. The maximum grant award will depend on the funding category applied which eligible applicant is applying for funding and the current use of the historic Black church building by an active or non-active congregation. For eligible applicants also note if you have received previous national trust grants you are still eligible to apply for preserving Black churches provided all grant requirements are current. This also includes previous African-American cultural heritage action fund national grant grantees. However, the action fund grantee can only apply under a different funding category than previously awarded. For example, a national grant program grant recipient and the capital projects that receive capital projects funding is not eligible to apply to preserving Black churches for capital projects funding and should apply through a new funding category such as project planning or organizational capacity. As mentioned, the purpose of the grants are for preserving Black churches. Excuse me, as mentioned, the purpose of this program is to preserve historic Black churches and houses of worship. So the first consideration to determine eligibility is whether the proposed project involves a historic Black church. For the purpose of this program the historic Black church is defined as you see here on the screen. It is a religious building built and erected by a Black congregation and continuously occupied by an active Black congregation or is a religious building designed and or constructed by a Black architect or builder currently occupied by an active Black congregation or being repurposed for arts, culture, community and social justice programs. Religious buildings not originally built by or for Black congregations are eligible but continuously occupied by an active Black congregation for at least 50 years. Active historic Black congregations that are part of historic Black religious nominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Baptist Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church of God and Christ and et cetera including non-denominational historic congregations and active historic Black congregations that are part of other religious nominations such as the Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Catholic Church and again, non-denominational. A proposed project and subject property should meet at least one of these criteria. The criteria is meant to be inclusive of active and non-active congregations as well as vacant religious buildings previously associated with the historic Black congregation. Assessing eligibility is a part of the LOI process which Diana will share more on shortly in the application process overview. Next, here's some other criteria and guidelines that should be considered when developing a letter of intent proposal. First, matching funds are not required to apply for preserving Black churches in the following funding categories, capital projects, project planning, programming and interpretation and organizational capacity building and operations. However, projects leveraging additional investments are strongly preferred. This can include both cash and in-kind support. Matching funds are required for the endowment and financial sustainability funding category. I will discuss this in detail shortly in the next section of the webinar. As mentioned earlier, grants from preserving Black churches cannot be used to match grants received from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund National Grant Program or National Fund for Sacred Places. Also, please be aware of what is ineligible to receive funding through preserving Black churches. In addition to the standard non-fundable activities for all of our national trust grant programs, the item CC here specific to churches are not eligible for funding. I want to highlight projects involving the Interior Sanctuary. A rehabilitation project focused on the Interior Sanctuary is eligible to receive funding. However, singular projects focused on sanctuary elements meant to enhance the worship experience are not eligible. For example, a proposal for restoration of the pews are altered but not be eligible for funding. However, if the applicant is undertaking a full comprehensive rehabilitation project of the sanctuary and removal, reinstallation or restoration of the pews is required as a part of that scope of work, the full project would be eligible. Lastly, when preparing a letter of intent, the following criteria should be considered. As you complete the application, it's important to demonstrate the historic and cultural significance of the church. Leadership support for preservation and capacity to manage the project and funding in a timely manner. Also, regardless of the project, it is important to show that the appropriate planning and pre-development steps have been taken to determine the project's needs and goals, particularly for capital projects. I've provided an overview of the guidelines and criteria. However, more details can be found on the grant guidelines page. You are encouraged to review them for additional information and guidance. The page can be accessed by visiting www.savingplaces.org slash black churches. Now I'm going to discuss the funding categories which eligible projects should fall under. When developing your project and assessing which category is applicable, please review the guidelines and pay attention to which type of applicant is eligible to apply under each category. The amount of funding allowed to be requested under each category and what type of projects are eligible under those categories. Grants from preserving black churches are offered under the following categories as I mentioned earlier. Capital projects, endowment and financial sustainability, organizational capacity and operations, programming and interpretation and project planning. Eligible applicants can submit multiple letters of intent applications but only one under each funding category. If you are invited to submit a full proposal, only one LOI will be selected and only one type of grant will be awarded for each grant round. Remember the minimum grant award is 50,000 and requests below 50,000 will not be considered. Let's start with capital projects. Capital projects include eligible projects that involve physical restoration, rehabilitation, stabilization and preservation of historic black church buildings. Please note, cemetery restoration projects are not eligible under this category of funding. Eligible applicants include historic black churches with active congregations and those churches can apply for funding up to $200,000. 501c3 not-for-profit organizations and public agencies can apply for funding up to $100,000. This is intended for churches no longer with active congregations and the building is being repurposed for community or programmatic use. Other 501c3 and other not-for-profit organizations established by or affiliated with an active congregation with a specific mission to preserve a historic black church are eligible to apply on behalf of the active congregation and they can apply for funding up to $200,000. If you are applying and developing your proposal, scope of work and budget, note that 15% of awarded grant funds can be used for developing any needed construction and planning documents. If you are awarded funds, all planning documents and plans will have to be approved by the National Trust before funds are dispersed and work can begin. Matching funds are not required for this category, though again, leveraging of funds is encouraged. Next for project planning. Eligible projects include acquiring consulting services for preservation, architecture and planning, fundraising and engineering studies, organizational development. Cemetery conservation and restoration plans are eligible under this category. This includes development of planning documents, guides and assessment studies. Note the cemetery does have to be owned and continuously connected to a historic black church. All eligible applicants of the program can apply for funding up to $100,000. Again, matching funds are not required but leveraging a dollars is encouraged. This is a category to consider if you're needing time to develop an understanding of the capital needs of a historic black church prior to seeking capital dollars. Programming and interpretation. Eligible projects include designing and implementing new innovative interpretive art and culturally based programs. Projects under this category are meant to elevate the significance and history of a historic black church, its legacy and contributions to the community and developing project that advances new approaches to storytelling and public education. All eligible applicants of the program can apply for funding up to $100,000. Again, matching funds are not required but leveraging of dollars is encouraged. Organizational capacity building and operations. Eligible projects under this category include creation of new full-time staff or promotion of part-time volunteer staff to full-time positions which directly support the preservation and stewardship of historic black church structures. Staff positions should be occupied by those with experience with preservation planning, project management, construction management, interpretation or other allied fields. Eligible applicants include historic black churches with active congregations and they can apply for funding up to $150,000. 501c3 not-for-profit organizations and public agencies can apply for funding up to $100,000. For both of those eligible applicants, these grants are intended to sustain positions for two years. Note that clergy and religious ministry staff positions are ineligible. Matching funds are not required but leveraging of dollars is strongly encouraged and additionally, your proposal should include plans for sustaining the position past the grant period if needed. Next, we have our endowment and financial sustainability category. This is a new category for the action fund and it's only included in preserving black churches. The purpose of this category is to invest in the legacy preservation of historic black churches allowing continued stewardship of these facilities following comprehensive rehabilitation projects. Eligible activities under this category include increasing existing or establishing new preservation endowments for historic black church buildings with active congregations to support activities such as cyclical maintenance of the building and grounds, insurance services and other activities related to the perpetual stewardship of the structure. Only active congregations or 501C3 organizations established with the sole purpose of preserving a historic black church are eligible to apply under this category. The not-for-profit must have an organizational mission and leadership role in stewarding a historic black church. Eligible applicants can apply for funding up to $200,000. This is the only category where a match is required and it is a one-to-one match. For new endowments, the match can be funds that are to be raised or for existing endowments, principal funds currently invested equal to or greater than the requested grant funds. Awarded grant funds will not be released until proof of the one-to-one match is secured. Lastly, grants received from other national trust grant programs cannot be used as match. Eligible applicants for this category should have completed a comprehensive restoration or rehabilitation of a historic church building within the last 10 years or are currently advancing an active restoration or rehabilitation project to be completed within the next two years at the time of application. Grant funds awarded under this category cannot be used for active capital projects, planning, programming and direct support for operational needs. Again, more detailed guidelines on all of the funding categories and what is eligible can be found online. So again, do visit savingplaces.org slash black churches. I'm going to go over quickly the application process and then I'm gonna turn it over to Diana to give more details on how to apply. But please note, the application process for preserving black churches is a two-step process starting with the letter of intent. The letter of intent is an online application for applicants to demonstrate eligibility and show a preliminary indication of interest and capacity. All letters of intent must be submitted through the National Trust's online grant application system by the deadline or they will not be reviewed. Email, phone call applications are not eligible and will not be reviewed. We ask that you do not send requests for funding or church histories or other statements of interest by email or phone, but utilize the information and guidelines online for assistance. The next step is a number of LOIs will be, a select number of LOIs will be invited to submit full proposals. Direct technical assistance will be offered during the full proposal stage. And that means that National Trust staff members will engage with the prospective grantees during the full application process and they will offer their signed applicant technical support and advice to ensure they're submitting competitive grant proposals. Unfortunately, due to the large amount of interest in the program, we're not able to offer direct technical assistance and reviewing proposals during the LOI phase. However, if you do have a specific question about your proposed project, you can email blackchurchesatsavingplaces.org and we will make every attempt to respond. Please note here the grant process timeline and schedule. Again, the letter of intent applications are due on September 2nd. All applicants will be notified of their status and the next steps by October 14th and then those invited to submit full proposals, those will be due on November 10th. And we plan to announce the final grantees in January of 2023. I will now turn it over to Diana Maxwell, who will give an overview on how to submit your LOI application using our grant system. Diana? Thanks, Tiffany. Tiffany, you'll be forwarding slides for me, I think, so you can go ahead and go to the next slide. So I'm Diana Maxwell, I'm Associate Director of Grants at the National Trust and I'm gonna walk you through the application process for this program. So today we're gonna talk about logging into our online grant system, which is called Foundant, the initial eligibility quiz that you'll need to pass to get access to the LOI and then some application tips. And just so you're aware, I'm going to use the terms LOI and application interchangeably while I talk today. Know that you're gonna start with an eligibility quiz and then you'll be to the, go to the LOI, which as Tiffany said, is a form within the online grant system. So even if I say application at this phase, I'm talking about the LOI form. If you're selected to move forward, you'll fill out the actual application form, which will be within the same system. For now, you only need to worry about the LOI. Next slide, please. Sorry, I don't see this. There we go. Thank you. So this is what the login page looks like for Foundant. You get to this from the guidelines page, which we've shared in the chat earlier. There's a link at the bottom of the page and we'd like you to read through those guidelines before you get to that link. But once you've gotten here, it's a good idea to bookmark the site just so that you don't have to kind of dig back into the guidelines every time you need to go in here. If you've applied for a National Trust grant before through the Action Fund or a Preservation Fund grant, and you've had an account, your organization has had an account, it's still gonna be there. If you've applied for the National Fund for Sacred Places, that's a slightly different system, so you will need to set up a new account. Either way, from this page, you can set up a new account or you can log in if you have forgotten your password and you have an account, you can reset your password from this page. And this is gonna be a different login than things like your National Trust forum membership. This is a separate system. So if you do need to set up a new account, you might get a warning as you're going through it that the EIN number has already been used for your organization. Don't worry about that. Go ahead and move on and set up, continue setting up your account. You can move past that and then we will connect any application or any organizations on the back end. So don't worry about that. Like I said, go ahead and bookmark this page so you don't have to search for it again. Next slide please. So this is the application page that shows what funding opportunities we have available currently. So you might need to scroll down, this is after you're logged in, we might need to scroll down to find the Preserving Black Churches Fund, but you won't need an access code that's up at the top. You don't need that. Just scroll down to find it. You do need to log in to fill out the form. So while you can see on the left, you can preview the form without going through, you can't submit anything. And in this case, the preview is just going to show you the eligibility quiz. Unlike some other National Trust grants, this program does begin with an eligibility quiz. So you're going to click start eligibility quiz to go to the quiz and get your application started. Next slide please. It's a super simple three-question quiz just to make sure that you're applying for the right grant program basically, and that you meet the very basic eligibility guidelines for the program. So that slide up there shows you the three questions that we're asking that you need to answer correctly to get access to the LOI. If your organization doesn't meet those guidelines, we don't want you to fill out an application because we don't want you to waste your time. We know that everybody's time is super valuable and we don't want anyone to submit an ineligible application. So next slide please. After you submit the quiz, if you're eligible, you'll see a screen like this and you're going to click continue and then the LOI will appear on the apply page within founded. And then you'll click apply to start it. So first you click continue here, next slide. And then if you were ineligible, you're going to get a notice like this that says based on your answers, you are not eligible to apply at this time. If you're marked ineligible, I encourage you to go back to the guidelines, just read through and make sure that what you answered is correct and that your project is eligible. For example, if you're a for-profit organization, you're not going to be eligible for this grant fund. If you did answer something incorrectly or you think there was a mistake, email us at grants at savingplaces.org and we can reset it for you so that you can go in, retake the quiz and get access to the LOI. So next slide, please. So if you are, once you are in the process, through the eligibility quiz and have been found eligible, you will get back to the application page and if you need to get back here, you can see on the upper left, there's two buttons, there's a little house and then there's a little piece of paper with an apply and this is the application page. To get back to this page, you click on that little apply button. But from here, you can see that it says you've passed the eligibility quiz and so you're able to go ahead and click apply on the LOI. So you will do that on the bottom right, it's the blue button. Next page, please. So now you have made it to the LOI form. So this is what the top of the form looks like. It'll have your applicant information that you submitted when you signed up for an account and then you scroll down to get to the questions. So there's a couple of things to note here. Only one email address can be linked to an application within the system which might make you think, oh, can only one person work on the application or work on the LOI? Yes and no. So only one email address can be linked to it but you can use our collaboration feature to bring other people into the form. So that collaborate button is on the upper right. See it's blue there and circled and if you click on that, it will have you fill out emails for the people that you want to invite to collaborate with you and you can set them with various permission levels. So this, you can invite someone to just view it, you can invite them to view and edit it or they can view, edit and submit it. So depending on how your organization works and how you wanna run that, you can do any of those options. So the what from there, you'll put the email in, the email will go out to the folks you wanna collaborate with. They'll get a link to the site and they'll have to either log in or set up an account to be able to collaborate. If you have issues or questions with this, send us an email at grants at savingplaces.org and we can send you some links to some step-by-step tutorials to do that. From this page, you can also see a question list there on the right and that will get you, that will download a PDF of all of the LOI questions. So this is good if you want to step away from your computer and think about them if you're somebody who works better, maybe in Microsoft Word or even by hand on paper, you can use that to see the questions that you need to answer. Next slide please. So you'll scroll down on that page to answer the questions and these are just a couple of the questions that you'll see in a couple of the question types. So some are open-ended questions, some are multiple choice, some have spots to upload items. Questions with asterisks after the title such as this church affiliation one are required to answer. You need to answer that question or you won't be able to submit the application. The green boxes under the questions you type in, so under community engagement, you see you have 1,000 characters left of 1,000. That tells you the maximum amount of characters you can type in there to answer the question. So spaces do count as characters and if you go over the character count or if you're uploading something and you go over the file size, you'll get an error message under the question like where it's green now, that'll be in red and you won't be able to submit the application. So you wanna make sure that you're paying attention to how long of a text you're writing in your answers. You know, this is a longer form. So you may not want to submit it all in one hand or you may need to go to somebody else to ask a question or something like that. You don't have to fill this all out at the same time. It does auto-save but you can also leave it and come back to it. So can I see the next slide, please? To do that, you're gonna scroll all the way down to the bottom and you'll see on the bottom it says save LOI and submit LOI. And if you want to step away, you're gonna hit save LOI and then you can leave and come back to it at another time. Next slide. You're gonna be wanna be sure that you go back to the LOI you've started. This is a problem that comes up for people where they're going, I don't understand I had all this text yesterday and now it's gone. A lot of times what happened is that you haven't gone back to your original LOI you've started a new one. You don't wanna start a new one unless you wanna do something for a different category. To get back to your original LOI, you wanna log in and then you click on the house button on that upper left hand side to get to your applicant dashboard page. And then it's gonna show you what applications, what active requests you have. So you can see here, you can view the eligibility quiz or below that it says edit application. So that's what you wanna go to. It'll say edit LOI for this fund. And that's how you get back into what you were working on. Next slide, please. So now you've read through the whole LOI, you've answered all the questions you need to answer. We have different questions for different project categories. So if you're talking to a friend or you're filling out forms for multiple categories, you may see that there's some different questions on the form. Depending on the type of projects you're applying for, there are specific questions. So don't get scared away by that. The basic information's all the same. Then we ask some more specific questions for some of the projects. So but when you're all done at the very bottom, you're going to sign off on the application with the applicant certification. This is just someone who's certified by your organization to sign off of it. So it can be your pastor, your minister, the head of your board, anything like that, just so that that's an official person to do it. And then you're going to click submit. So that's right on the bottom there next to save LOI, that blue button. So once you've done that, we'll get the LOI electronically and we'll look at them all after the deadline comes in in September. And then after we've had a chance to review everything and make decisions, you'll be notified via email if your LOI is selected to move forward or not. So next slide, please. This brings me to my tips to remember. It is really, really important that you save these three email addresses within your email system. We only notify via email and the notification is going to come from this administrator at grantinterface.com email. That's going to be sometimes a weird email for your system and it gets picked up as spam sometimes. So you need to add, really you should add all three of these to your safe list on your emails so that they will come to your email inbox. We only notify via email and if your notification goes to a spam folder, we can't do anything about that. So you don't wanna be in a position where you've been accepted into the program but don't find out until the week before the full application is due because you didn't get the notification. So please, please, please save these emails in your email system. As I said, spaces count in the character count and if you go over it, you won't be able to submit the LOI. Pay attention to this, especially if you're working outside of the program, if you're working in Word or some other system and then copying over what you wrote elsewhere. Double check and make sure that you're not over the character limit because it won't let you submit the application. You can have everything filled out, everything be great, but if something's one character over, so if you put in one space more extra, then it's not gonna let you submit it. You have to answer the questions with an asterisk. So if you, same deal, if you don't answer one of those questions, it's not gonna let you submit the application. You may get, if your organization is already in the system, you may get that warning at the beginning when you're setting up a new account that the EIN has already been used. Don't worry about that, just skip past that. Do, you reach out to us by email the grants team, that's the grants at savingplaces.org email. If you have questions about the process or the form or about submitting it, Tiffany's email, the black church's email is better if it's sort of a question about your specific project. If you have project specific questions, we're better with the technical questions, but we can try with both of them and we'll loop you over to Tiffany if it needs to happen. But please don't wait till the last minute to do this. We're available nine to five Eastern Monday through Friday and email is the best way to get in touch with us, but September 2nd is right around Labor Day and we may not be in the office, we won't be in the office after 5 p.m. on weekdays. So just remember that, pay attention to how close we are to things being due. And remember too that applications are due at 11.59 p.m. your local time. So if you're in Central, we're Eastern time here in DC where I am Tiffany, Central time. So depending on where your specific location is, it's 11.59 p.m. on September 2nd. So that is it for me, Tiffany, back to you. Thank you, Diana, for that overview. We're now gonna move to our question and answer and I see you all have been submitting your questions in the Q&A, thank you. We have been answering some of them directly to you, but we are gonna do them live. But before I pull those up and feel free to go ahead and submit questions. If we have answered your question in the presentation, you can dismiss your question that helps us clear out so we're not repeating and we can get through as many as possible. But I'm going to first go over just a couple of frequently asked questions and then we'll go to the Q&A and get into some more specifics that you all are asking. Okay, so some frequently asked questions that we have been receiving is first, does my church need to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places or designated as a landmark to apply? And the answer to that is no, it is not required for properties to be formally listed or designated as historic to apply. But again, a special emphasis will be placed on sites that have a prominent physical when or historical place in their community. So when you're completing your LOI, it will be important to detail the church's historic significance both architectural and cultural. However, if your church is designated and recognizes historic site, please do include that information in your application. If you're not sure whether your site is listed or eligible for historic designation, you can always contact your State Historic Preservation Office. Generally, we work for something to be considered historic as a building. We start at 50 years. And so you'll notice, and we talked about our eligibility for our black congregations that are in churches that were not originally built for black congregations. That's why we have that 50 year mark because we wanna ensure these spaces have become recognized as black spaces and associated with the black community and African-American congregation. So 50 years is the benchmark. So being able to articulate that in the LOI will be very important so that we can establish the historic and cultural significance. Next, are only historic black church buildings eligible to apply? Yes, only historic black church buildings as was defined earlier in the webinar are eligible to receive grants under all of the funding categories. Historic cemeteries that are owned by historic black church are only eligible under the project planning category. If you are seeking funding for capital projects for your historic cemetery restoration, those are eligible and you can apply to the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund National Grant Program for that. Next, what is an active congregation? So for the purposes of preserving black churches, an active congregation are those that are holding regular worship services and or conduct public programming from historic black church building. Next again, can we apply for preserving black churches and national fund for sacred places? Yes, all eligible applicants can apply to national fund for sacred places and preserving black churches. However, funding received, remember again from other national trust programs including the action fund and the national fund for sacred places can't be used as match for your project. I will, you can find the link to national fund for sacred places on savingplaces.org to learn more about that program and to contact the staff that are managing that program and they can share more details on what is eligible and ineligible underneath that program. Lastly, can grant funds be used for staffing and technology needs? Yes, grants can be used to support technological needs associated with non-religious programming and historic interpretation. If you are applying for technology for the purpose of the LOI, it should be submitted under the organizational capacity building and operations funding category. But again, if it's technology associated with the worship experience or worship service or religious services that is not eligible to receive funding. We do have a frequently asked questions page online with more questions that you can review. And again, you can get there by going to the black churches page at savingplaces.org. So now, Priya, do you want me to start with the Q and A or do you want to call out some questions? Sorry, I'm trying to answer things in the chat. I can certainly try. Diana, maybe we can tag him a little on this because there's 115. Yep. So if there are things about the LOI that you think you can answer by typing, I'm doing it now. Amazing. All right, so I'm going to just start from the top. See, what funding category would leaving a church conference fall under? Okay, I'm not sure I understand the question. Again, if that doesn't say for what you're saying meaning that you're disassociating with a church conference or moving to another building, that would not be eligible. Again, these grants are meant to support active congregations in place in historic black church buildings as well as repurposing former historic black churches for community use. If I answered your question, if I did not, again, please feel free to email blackchurch at the savingplaces.org with more details so that I can have a clear understanding of what you're requiring about. It looks like a number of questions where people had questions about the match, what that meant. So Tiffany, you might want to talk about that a little bit more. Yeah, so again, remember all of the categories except for the financial sustainability and endowment do not require a match. And that's similar to our action fund grant. You can submit without for funding up to the allowed amount underneath the category without any match. So if you have a project that is costing $150,000, it's a capital project and you are requesting 150, that is okay, you can do that, it's eligible. Again, if you are able to provide match either over that amount or part of that amount, it does make it a more competitive proposal because you're seeing how you're leveraging dollars, but it is not required. So we ask you to think creative about your project, your scope, your budgeting, as you're pulling something together to demonstrate that this funding is one needed and also that it is gonna be transformational for what you're doing. We understand that a lot of these projects are much more expensive than $200,000. So a good way to think about is in phases. If you're only applying to us for one phase of a project to really focus and articulate on that phase and what this funding is going for there. And you can talk about what you have done in the past, but now that you're at a next step, you need funding to continue on. So again, you do not need a match for all of the categories instead of the accept endowment and financial sustainability, but if you can leverage dollars, whether it's cash or in kind to achieve more than what you're applying any amount of funding for, it will make for a more competitive proposal. For the endowment and financial sustainability, again, it is a one-to-one match because this is investing in perpetual endowments. So we want to ensure and help you be able to leverage either a capital campaign fundraising toward an endowment or again, growing an existing endowment. So with your applying to that, to grow your endowment for $200,000, you can apply to us for 50, but you're gonna have to raise 50. If you're applying first for 100, you're gonna have to raise 100. If you're applying for $200,000, you're gonna have to raise $200,000 and you'll have two years to do that. So that is where the match is required and that is a one-to-one cash match. Okay, and before I ask the next question, I just wanna verbally say we are recording this webinar. I will send out the recording, which will include a link to where you can find the slides to the email address that you registered for this session at. And that email usually goes out 24 hours after this ends, but if you want it earlier, it will likely be posted before 5 p.m. today at the savingplaces.org slash black-curches page and on the guidelines page, which you can get to from the savingplaces page. And I've been dropping that link in the chat a number of times and I'll do that one more time before the end of the session. We have a number of questions about 501c3 status and if you have to be designated and if the status is pending, if you can talk through that a little bit Tiffany. Yeah, again, remember for our active black churches is not required that you are a 501c3, but you do need a federal tax ID number. So those that you use just for your reporting purposes, if you do have a 501c3, you can apply under that. If it is pending, you can indicate that in your application. But again, if you're active black church, it will not be required. If you are applying as a 501c3 organization, you will, that status pending, and Diana correct me if I'm wrong, at the time that we award the funding, you will need to, it cannot be pending, you will need to be a 501c3. So you can apply pending, but if you were awarded funding before we could release funds and go into agreement with you, you would have to have that approval from the IRS, correct? Correct. See, can you, I know you mentioned this earlier as well, but just to emphasize a lot of questions about applying in more than one category. Yes, you can apply in more than one category at the LOI phase. So if you want to submit an LOI under capital, you can, if you want to submit an LOI under planning, you can operations, capacity building, interpretation and programming. During the review process for LOI, they will be reviewed equally. If you are, if one is selected, only one will be selected, you will not be invited to submit, you know, two full proposals under separate categories. So it's something to think about. And we get this question a lot with the action fund as well, based on your project and where you are and what you're looking to do, what is the priority? And sometimes it might be more ideal to focus on one priority based on where you are in the project. So that is something for you to determine, but it is okay to submit one LO, more than one LOI under each category. My bit of advice I will give to you, having reviewed a lot of these over the years is to make sure the multiple LOIs do not conflict with each other. Sometimes something will be indicated in one LOI that makes a question in the other LOI. So it's confusing as to exactly where the project is going and what's being done. So it's really something to think about if you are submitting multiple LOIs under each category. Excuse me, one LOI under multiple categories. I'm scrolling down, everyone, there's 162 questions. So we will go through a couple of them. Do you see the ADA ones? There's a lot of questions about ADA. So again, ADA, we will put that in, if it was a part of a larger rehabilitation project, yes, ADA would be eligible. So if you are looking to do, and it will depend on your project in terms of the level of accessibility you're trying to achieve, but if it is going to involve new construction, adding an addition, things like that to the building, that would not be eligible. But if you're doing an interior rehabilitation and also improving ADA accessibility or exterior rehabilitation and improving exterior, excuse me, accessibility, that would be eligible. So, but if it is new construction, no, it would not be eligible. Dana, this one's for you, but a bunch of questions about collaborators. Yeah, so if you have, how does saving work? I know it's a very, yeah. Yeah, so the saving I walked through in the discussion, you scroll down and hit save. For specific things about the collaborator feature, you're gonna need to be in the system to access it. So you're gonna need to be actively doing the LOI. And then you hit that collaborator button, you put in the emails, the emails go out to people. If once you're in there, you still don't understand or you don't have questions about it, send an email to grants at savingplaces.org and we can send you out a link to a video that walks you through it, but get in there and do it first. It's easier to explain when you're in there than it is for me to just tell you here, just because it's step-by-step in the system. But if you're in there and you don't understand after you've clicked logged in, gotten to the LOI, clicked the collaborate button, then you send us an email, please. I see a lot of questions about renovation and new construction, so I'm just gonna answer that. Again, it depends on the term in what you're considering when you need renovation. So in the preservation field, we usually use rehabilitation restoration. If you're thinking renovation in terms of complete alteration of the building interior spaces, that would not be eligible. Any capital work needs to adhere to the secretary, the interior standards for rehabilitation and restoration. And you can find those online. So this is about funding preservation of historic black churches. So any new additions, renovation, that would not be eligible. And I see some questions in regard to, you know, kitchen, restrooms, church office floors, things like that. Again, not eligible, but again, I really would have to know the scope of what you're doing because you could just be using that term interchangeably or for rehabilitation. So, but if this is for new construction, expansions, additions, you know, complete gutting of historic interior spaces, that would not be eligible under capital or planning for those purposes. So I want to make that clear. Someone asked, what do we mean by contiguously connected to the church? That means it's directly attached to the church property. So it's not, you know, across town. It's not down the street. It's a part of the physical footprint of the church and it's owned by the church. This is a sort of an overarching question about the program. If this is a three-year pilot project, will the application process be repeated? So maybe if you wanna... Yes, we've initially laid out to do two cycles of the grant program. So it will open back up again next year around this time. So that is our intent. We could do more depending on the interest, but initially a minimum of two grant cycles. So this will be an annual program. Someone asked for capital projects as the grant allow funding for a project manager with historic preservation experience. Yes, so with capital projects you can use, in addition to the 15% of the award of funding that you can use for developing planning documents, you can also use 10% for indirect costs. And so that could be directed for hiring a project manager to oversee the construction project. And so as you're developing a budget and you know those percentages of what's allowed, you can indicate that in your request of how much funding is going for, if planning or indirect support and for the capital project. So a couple are asking about leveraging funds too and what we mean by that. And basically it means that if you have funds already committed to the project or you're bringing funds or it can be funds, it can be in-kind services to the project. We don't require a match, but your project will look better if you have money committed to it. Do you think that, yeah. Yeah, again, we know that this funding can't cover everything. And so if you can take it as an opportunity to leverage additional dollars, maybe there's another grant or funding that does require a match, you can match with these dollars. And so really thinking creatively of how this can leverage additional dollars to do a bigger project is important and something to think about. I see a question in capital funding, do you have to submit quotes or contracts? You do not have to, but again, that's part of that pre-planning development work. We really do wanna see how you came up with the number you're asking for. And we also wanna make sure the scope matches the amount you're requesting. So if you do have, you don't have to have contracts, but if you have a contractor's estimate, you have a scope of work, you have an architectural assessment, those are the type of documents that are important to have included in your proposal and request for capital funding. A few people are also asking too about work that's already been done. Work that has been completed is not eligible to apply. If the work has already been completed, it is not eligible to receive funding. This is for work that you are proposing to do. And again, if you are awarded funding, work cannot begin in any of these categories until that funding is approved, any other subsequent approvals of your scope of work, as well as the signing of a grant agreement with the National Trust. So that's something important to think about when you're requesting funding and you're talking about your project is really indicating what has been completed prior, if any, and that that is not included in what you're requesting to use the power funding for. There's been a couple of questions too about churches coming in, two or more churches coming in together on a proposal about that. Yeah, we've gotten that question a lot and I would say preferably we would not like to see that. One, it will make it complicated to understand who's managing the dollars, also the impact of the dollars if it's spread out under one amount of funding. And so these really need to be individual proposals for one site there. It is something, I'm getting a lot of questions about that, it's particularly from denominational leadership. And so it is something we're gonna think about and consider, but for this grant cycle right now, they do need to be individual requests from individual churches or entities. This is, I saw this come in and I think Diana, you might have answered it privately, but I just wanna say verbally, the grant interface link is on the guidelines page, which you can access through the saving places website or if you go directly to the guidelines link that I've been dropping in the chat. But the reason it's at the bottom is because we want you to take your time reading all the guidelines that Tiffany has told you in this webinar, instead of just going quickly to the grant interface because reading through that will really help you when you get to actually filling out the LOI. So, but for those of you, someone mentioned for accessibility and for visual learners to mention that out loud. So the link is at the bottom of that page, but please take the time to read through the written guidelines, which is largely what Tiffany has been saying in this presentation. Yeah, someone asked about historic windows. Yes, that would be eligible for an interior capital project that we probably consider that an exterior project because it's a part of the facade wall and exterior. So that would be eligible to apply for a capital project or planning for the windows. If you need a window survey and really develop a scope of how to restore them, if they're stained glass windows or original windows. Someone asked about arts program. Oh, I'm sorry, Diana. Go ahead. Someone asked about arts programming under programming interpretation. Can it be executed at the historic church or can it be produced by a church but executed a different site? It needs to be at the site of the historic black church. We want to support activating these spaces for use by the community or congregation. So any programming and interpretation needs to occur at the historic black church. What's a stewarding a historic black church means? That means owning it, maintaining it in a leadership role of ensuring that it's still open and utilized. So that's in a commitment to preserving it. So that's what we mean by stewarding it. That's the entity, the applicant has an active leadership role or ownership role in maintaining that physical space of the historic black church. This people are asking, what is a historic black church? Again, for purposes of this program, it is those things that I mentioned earlier and those are on the guidelines. So that is it. We're not saying that is the official definition of a historic black church, but for the purpose of this program, eligible projects and applicants need to fall under one of those bullets. So do go to the grant guidelines page and look at that. And as Diana walked us through, those will be the questions as well as in the eligibility portion of the LOI. And there have been a number of questions for sort of specific questions specific to the person who's asking specific case. For those kind of questions, send an email because we're trying to answer the big overall questions right now. Please send to blackchurches.savingplaces.org. I will try very hard to respond to you. I'm not looking at the inbox right now, but I'm quite sure there are already a lot of questions there, but so I don't take up too much time. We've gone over, maybe we'll go for another five more minutes and I think we'll have to end the webinar. But if it's specific to your situation, to your church, send that question to blackchurches.savingplaces.org. And then for the general questions, again, refer to the guidelines in FAQ. Is preference given to entities that have previous national trust grants? No, we are very open to all applicants as long as they meet the eligibility. So everyone, if your project meets this criteria and you feel like it is a good fit for what you're looking to achieve, you are very much encouraged to apply. Does the congregation have to be in the original building to be eligible? Again, look at that, what qualifies as historic black church if you're not in your original building? What's the history of the building your end is it connected to the historic black church or you've been there again for 50 years? Tiffany, another overarching question is, do you know how many awards you anticipate granting? We do not because I think it'll depend on how many apply and the amount of funding requested. So that, if we go by the action fund, what we typically award each year is between 30 and 40 grants. And then those categories are at this level for preserving black churches, but it's hard to say that immediately because we don't know what exactly will be requested and the amount of each request. Yeah, and just remember, this is the first year. So, yeah, just remember it's the first year. And as Tiffany said, there are going to be other cycles of this. I don't know if there's anything else major you want to answer, it is 240 and I want to be cognizant of people's times. Ken, well, the leveraging of funds, I think I mentioned that again, yes, you could use state and county funds and grants. We are five, the national trust is a 501C3, we're not a federal agency. So you can use our funding to match federal dollars and other private dollars. You just cannot use it to match those programs of the national trust that I mentioned, which includes the action fund national grant program and national fund for sacred places. And then I just want a few, just sort of closing out things. As I have said before, we are recording this. Tiffany is going to get me to slides after this and we will post them at savingplaces.org slash black hyphen churches. I will also make sure they are on the guidelines page. I think maybe if you need them today, get back at five on both of those pages and I'll make sure they're there. You will also get an email directly from, I think it'll be the national trust or Zoom. I think it's the national trust with a link to those pages where these pieces are posted. And then also I will include those two email addresses where you can send more information along with the email address Diana said that you should make sure are white listed in your system to get emails related to this program. We also have access to all the questions you have asked. So Tiffany and Diana and I will go through them and see if there's anything we need to add to the FAQ because we had a bunch that were asked multiple times but we have your questions that were in the Q and A and we will try and follow up in some way if we can. But like Diana said, if it is a specific situation related to your church, email block churches at savingplaces.org. If it has to do with the grant interface and the LOI process, email grants at savingplaces.org. I think that's everything. Sorry, I'm a different voice right now. I apologize. No, you're good. You're good. Thank you, Maria. One last question someone did ask about the endowment and financial sustainability. We have money invested, but lost funds. So if we apply for endowment, can we use the original amount? Again, it needs to be based on the principal. I'm not sure if you've lost the principal amount. It cannot be a past principal amount. It needs to be what's currently the principal value of the endowment that you would use as match. But again, you can email blackchurches at savingplaces.org and we can discuss that more in detail. And there are some other criteria and guidelines underneath that funding category to read online as well there. So unfortunately, I wish I could stay on and we could stay on and answer all of your questions directly. We're so pleased with the interest in this program and grateful for everyone who has reached out and shown interest and look forward to receiving all of your proposals. So I do wanna thank you for attending the informational webinar. And again, your interest in the program. As we close out, as you remember the LOI applications are due September 2nd and they must be submitted via our grant system. As Priya has mentioned, access to the grant guidelines, the FAQ and the application can be found at savingplaces.org slash blackchurches. As Priya mentioned, the recording of this webinar will be sent out very shortly to everyone who registered for the session. We were over capacity. So I'm afraid some people did not get in and so we're gonna make sure they get a copy of this webinar. And then it will also be accessible through a link on the black churches webpage at savingplaces.org and it will be available when you go to the grants guideline page on forum as well. And then you will get an email with links to all that as well as a PDF of the PowerPoint presentation. Again, if you have questions about your specific project do email blackchurches at savingplaces.org and I will do my best to respond as quickly as possible to you. If you have questions about the grant system or any issues accessing it, email Diana and the grants team at grants at savingplaces.org and we are here to help as much as possible. Again, we're really excited about this program and the impact it's gonna make across the country and we appreciate you all's interest and also share this information with anyone that you think would be interested in any of your sister churches and give them the information of how they can be a part of this program as well. So again, thank you. We hope to speak with you all soon again and on behalf of the National Trust, the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund thank you for your participation and we look forward to engaging with all of you again soon. Have a good day.