 Okay, I'll go ahead and repeat what I said earlier and that is that we are going to use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen and just about 10 minutes will start allowing people maybe 10 or 15 minutes will start allowing people to answer questions or ask questions rather. And so we'll ask you to use the Q&A function, which is at the bottom of your screen. If you do need to use closed captions that isn't able so you can use the closed caption function, which is also at the bottom of your screen. And so what we're going to do is first we're going to go really quickly over some basic tips to help you through the process. Then there were several of you who actually submitted some questions ahead of time we're going to go over those, and then we're going to head into some live questions and answers from you. So again, use that Q&A function, and we'll start getting to your questions. One thing that I do want to say is some of you had some very specific question. And for those questions that are specifically about your project that we won't be able to get into tonight. What I want you to do is email us at blackchurches at savingplaces.org so that we can help you more directly. We'll either help you directly at blackchurches.atblackchurchesatsavingplaces.org, or we might direct you to our office hours for one of our staff members through our 30 minute sessions, which again, you can sign up through blackchurchesatsavingplaces.org. And I'm still seeing people filter in so again, you can start putting in your questions at our Q&A function. And we will either answer your questions right there or we will go ahead and answer your questions out loud. The other thing that will start to happen in the chat function is for some of those questions that were pre submitted, we're going to start answering those questions in the chat function. Those pre submitted questions we're going to start putting those in the chat function. And I'll mention to that as well. This meeting and the chat will be sent to you. So this meeting is being recorded, the chat is being recorded. So both the chat and the meeting will be sent to you in the next few days after this meeting ends. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Elastin McInnis, who's going to start us off with tips and tricks. Hello everyone. As a quick introduction. It is so good to have all of you in the space tonight to discuss preserving black churches. I am Alaska McInnis and I am the director for the national grants program. You just heard from Leslie, who gave us this lovely introduction. Give me one moment. Our senior manager of preserving black churches. We're all here with us this evening we have Tiffany Tolbert, who is the senior director for preservation here at the national trust via the action fund myself, and also Kelly Gibson our senior manager for the national grants program. And today I just wanted to quickly go over some tips to remember. First and foremost, we'll be referencing this often throughout tonight's webinar. We really want everyone to become familiar with the guidelines and the eligibility information on our website. We'll be dropping the link for that in the chat, you'll be able to see that. And also on the frequently asked questions. On each page, we have a prerecorded informational webinar that is incredibly helpful in that we actually go through each question on the application to explain exactly what the question means and what we're looking to learn from that question on the application. So it's an incredibly valuable resource something we took a lot of time with and wanted to make sure it was a valuable resource for you. So please take the time to take a look at that webinar and get familiar with those resources as some of the questions really did link back to the information that was included there. First tip to remember, August 23 at 1159 local time your time is when these applications will be due. So please make sure that then information the application is completed and submitted by August 23 in order to be considered, it would need to be submitted via email. Unfortunately, we're not able to review any applications that are submitted via email. We will make that PDF of the application available, but that wouldn't be something that we would be able to take and assess as a part of the application pool. Additionally, we want you to make note of the fact that spaces count when you're filling out your applications in the character count. So each question where they're at they're asking for a little bit of information, a little bit of narrative. And there's maybe 500 characters as a limit. Every space does count for that 500 number. When you are submitting your application and there's a, we're asking for the main contact for the grant process. Please note that this is the person that we would need to engage with about the function of this grant not necessarily your church leadership. If those are the same people, great, maintain that and submit that information. But if say senior leadership is not necessarily the person that would be managing the ins and outs of this grant, please put the individual who would essentially walk this process through to the completion as the main point of contact as they will be receiving emails and even follow ups to make sure that we have everything we need to ensure that this grant is paid out in full, or even just help completing any questions that we may have on the application itself. Additionally, if your organization is already in the grant system, and you look to say create a new profile, you will get a warning. Instead of like trying to create a new profile altogether, please be in touch with us at action fund grants at saving places.org so that we can work with you to actually figure out what's going on and reset the password or figure out what your login issue is, as opposed to creating a new profile to make sure. Also, another note is that every question that has an asterisk, it is a required question so please take the time to make sure that all of those are addressed because if they're not, you won't be able to submit the application. So, a lot of information that we're going to be sending out or any questions that we may have clarity that we need, they will be coming from one of these emails essentially. So make sure that these email addresses are saved, and that you're able to receive the emails from these three locations this is action fund grants at saving places.org black churches at saving places.org, and the grant management system that we use will send notifications to the third one which is administrator at grant interface calm. All three of these are emails that you would want to be on the lookout for. If you have questions about your specific project, please email black churches at saving places.org. And if you'd like to make an appointment for office hours. Same thing. Email us at black churches at saving places.org. We have a question about the system. So any kind of login issues or kind of questions around the process of applying reach out to us at action fund grants at saving places.org. And we can help you navigate this process, as best we can and get you to a place where you've successfully submitted your application. We've reached the point where we're going to start with the Q&A portion. This is a reminder that we will be monitoring our live Q&A kind of section that link at the bottom of your screen where it says Q&A you would want to utilize that for questions that you have. Also, please watch the chat. This is where we'll be dropping questions that were submitted via the registration process that we have answered for you. So please don't add any additional questions to the chat as that's not necessarily what we're going to be able to manage that discussion for at this point given the volume tonight, which is lovely. I just want to center all of the questions in the Q&A section on Zoom. So with that, we're going to go ahead and answer some of the more specific questions that were submitted via the registration process. And I now turn it over to you, Leslie. Thanks, Alaska. So now I'm going to start with some of the questions that we got that were pre-submitted. So the first one is, are for-profit companies who purchased a black church eligible to apply for the grant? The answer is no. For-profit companies are not eligible. Eligible applicants include historic black churches, 501C3 nonprofit organizations, and public agencies. Check out our website at savingplaces.org backslash preserving black churches guidelines for more details. The second question is, we have two capital projects with two different addresses. Can both be submitted as separate projects? The organization will be the same, but the addresses are different. The answer is no. Eligible applicants can submit one application under each funding category. However, if selected, only one application can be funded. The next question is, does a black church need to be on the historic register to qualify? The answer is no. It is not required for properties to be formally listed or designated as historic to apply, but a special emphasis will be placed on sites that have had a prominent physical and or historical place in their community. The next question is, I'm looking for additional information to determine if our historical church meets the eligibility requirements. This is, again, one of those situations where this is a specific question about a specific project, and I'll remind you that for specific questions about your project, please contact us at blackchurches at savingplaces.org. There was also a specific question about whether we can provide a PDF of the grant application by email or by posting it on our website. I would note that our application is actually available on our website, and we're going to drop that application form link actually into our chat now. The next question is, if an organization is awarded a grant from another source for the same project submitted in this grant application, can the organization revise their application to cover another phase of the overall project? What would happen in this case? What I would say is you can potentially make some revisions to your scope of work, but my suggestion would be to contact us if this happens before proceeding that we can figure out what the best course of action is. So you really want to avoid a situation like this without actually contacting us. Always contact us when there's a major change like this before proceeding. The next question is, are salaries and operating expenses allowable costs? And the answer is, yes, preserving black churches provides funding to support organizational capacity building and operations. The grants are intended to support creation of new staff positions that directly support the preservation and stewardship of historic black church buildings. Funding cannot be used to support clergy or religious staff. The next question is, if my church was denied in an early application, should we consider applying again? The answer is yes, churches that were not selected for funding in the first round are welcome to apply again. The next question is, could funds be used to expand building growth? The answer is, costs associated with planning for or constructing new buildings or structures are ineligible. The next question is, there have been some questions about what type of letter is required from a particular denomination. As each denomination has a different governing structure, we really want all of you to make sure you are following whatever procedures are appropriate to your denomination to make sure that it is okay for you to submit this application. It would be helpful for us to have something in writing that shows that this application and the proposed project are approved for submittal. The next question is, does this grant opportunity apply to different types of Christian ministries? There have been various questions about whether various denominations are eligible. We could not list all of the different Christian denominations in this application. The best way to look at it is whether your denomination is located in a historic black church and connected to the culture of that historic black church. The next question is, are church cemeteries also included for grant consideration? And what I would say is capital projects involving cemetery restorations are ineligible. However, under the project planning category, the development of planning documents, guides and assessment studies for historic black cemeteries are eligible. Note, the cemeteries must be owned by and continuously connected to historic black church. The next question, if the historic church is in need of extreme repair, does it have to be in operation or in use for service? Does the church need to have a nonprofit organization in place to accept funds? The answer is, non-active churches are eligible as long as they are historic black churches. If the church does not have nonprofit status in place, they can use a fiscal agent. Now, this includes, we also got this question about if churches are currently applying for 501c3 status, as long as you have 501c3 status, by the time you turn in your application, you are okay, but you just need to let us know, keep us, let us know what's going on. There's been questions about personages, about whether they're eligible. And personages can be potentially eligible if they are attached to or directly behind an historic black church. The personage must also meet the eligibility requirements for historic black church. For more information about auxiliary buildings of this type, I encourage you to please contact us at blackchurchesatsavingplaces.org. There was a specific question that has to do with churches that are in national historic cultural heritage areas, or churches that are in historic districts or things of that nature. And what I would say is that any historic black church that meets eligibility requirements can apply for our preserving black churches grant. Grant categories include capital, project planning, programming and interpretation, organizational capacity building and operations and endowment and financial sustainability. And those are some of the benefits that we offer through this program. There's a question about timeline and while the application deadline is August 23, grantees will not be notified about their status regarding whether they get the money until January of 2024. And then it usually takes a little bit of time after that, maybe a month after that for you to receive the money depending on what your funding category is and how long it takes you to turn in certain paperwork. Connected to that there was also a question and this came up for several of you about the reasons why some churches are declined and some churches are approved. And these questions are very much connected. And what I would say is that most of the time churches don't receive funding because this is a very competitive process. And there are so many amazing projects that are submitted across this across the country. And we have, we only have so much funding. I would say that some specific reasons are not that churches are not funding are funded is number one, not being clear about the scope of work. It is very, very important that you are very clear about what you are proposing to do. Let us know exactly very succinctly, even if it's bullet points exactly what your project is what are you proposing to do. The other thing is not being clear about what your budget is. Sometimes people will ask us for $200,000 and they'll just say we want $200,000 and not really break down the budget and let us know what that $200,000 consists of. Where those numbers came from and how that ties back to their budget. Sometimes projects aren't ready to go, meaning someone has proposed a project, but their application really doesn't indicate that once we give them the funding that it's very clear that they'll be ready to actually start their project. The other thing is that the other thing we're looking for is that what you're proposing will really lead to the preservation and sustaining of the resource in question. That's really important that that comes across in your application. And lastly, is really adequately showing the significance of the resource in question. So applications that don't show that are usually less successful than others and so on the on the flip side applications that successfully show all those things are usually more successful than others. The other question was, we were asked to discuss the ability to apply for more than one grant. The way is that applicants are welcome to apply for all the grants that we have. You can apply for the preserving black churches grant, the African American cultural heritage action grant, the Fund for sacred places grant and the various other preservation grants the National Trust has to offer. When it comes to applying for the preserving black churches grant and the African American cultural heritage action fund grant. You don't need to understand that if you were to, for instance, apply for capital grant for preserving black churches and you are awarded, you would need to apply for an action fund grant in a different category. You can, if you wanted to apply for preserving black churches fund grant, and you were awarded and then you applied for fun for sacred places, you can't use the funds awarded from the action fund to use that as the required match for sacred places. What you're planning to do if you're considering applying for multiple grants. It's just to talk to a staff member contact us that preserving black churches at setting places.org and just talk talk to us about what you're planning to do so we can help you through that. We can help you through that process, but you do have the ability to apply for multiple grants. Let's some questions from several people that talked about and this is great. I'm talking about celebrating over 100 years at their church and one question is whether this applies to their congregation or their church. For this grant we are looking at historic black churches. So the building should be 50 years or older and built for or by African Americans. It was not built for or by African Americans. It should then be inhabited by an African American congregation for the last 50 years. Churches now churches that now function as a different use could still be eligible as a non active congregation, they would still need to meet the other eligibility requirements. And our second to last question is, is there any assistance available to assist a congregation whose property was sold to a developer to do it dwindling membership. There have been questions about whether funds can be used to purchase property or prevent the sale or property. Our grants cannot be used for the purchase of a property or to prevent the sale or property. Our grants can be used for planning purposes to help you come up with a financial plan, fundraising plan, or to take a wholesale look at the needs of your church. Consider taking a closer look at our planning grants. And lastly, there's a question about cost estimates. And what you need to submit and whether you need quotes on letterhead. And what I would say is we don't need quotes on letterhead at this point in time but we do need to have an indication that your budget is based on real numbers. So it's really best for you to have some sort of bid or or some sort of quote something that shows that your budget and your budget narrative is based on real numbers. And so with that, we will now start our live Q amp a. Okay, so we have. Are there any restrictions on what category you choose. Last year our church wasn't able to apply for a capital project. If we had recently received one from the National Trust. Is this still the case. So for preserving black churches of this is a brand new category of a brand new brands. And so for right now we are not restricting if you applied last year, or yeah just last year for preserving black churches. We are not preventing you from applying again in the in the same category. If you aren't funded last year, you can certainly apply again in the same category. So the next question is, is this about preserving churches or buildings. If you had, if you have existed continuously as a congregation since 1891, but have a newer building for which you need assistance, are you eligible for funding. We are not in a newer building. We are not at this time funding newer buildings your building needs to be at least 50 years or older. The next question is will a black church that has occupied that has occupied for more than 60 years, 100 plus your old historic church that was built by a four white domination be considered for this program. If I understand the by understand the question correctly. I think that the church itself is 100 year old church that was originally built for a white congregation, but a black congregation has occupied it for 60 plus years, and if if that's what you're asking then yes, it is eligible. We have to have been the site of a major national historic event to be competitive. No, and thank you for asking that question. What we, what we didn't want to have is a situation at every church does not have to be where Martin Luther King spoke. We, there's room for every type of historic event, it can be local, it can be regional. It can be national. So as you are talking about the historic significant and that's why we don't require it to be designated. So as you're looking at your historic significance, think about your local significance regional or national. It can be, you know, one of those three. So it doesn't have to be national significance, but think about how it's how your church is connected to African American history. Think about how your church has responded to different events. So think about it that way, but it doesn't always have to be national significance. And see, what are some of the common mistakes and responding to prior grant opportunities. I think I went over that with the sort of during the pre submitted questions. Okay, so the three competitive bids. So, what I would say about the three competitive bids is that we want you to do the best you can on the three competitive bids. But we also understand and we've, we've gotten this this feedback that that's not always possible, especially depending on where you live. And so if you've at all. So, right. And so and so if you at all struggle with getting those three bids, just contact us at black churches at saving places.org and let us know what's going on. So that's so that we can so that we can figure that out. But don't worry about that. So do the best you can. And if that becomes an issue, just let us know. Is there a specific number of grants to be awarded or is it just dependent upon the submitted budget justifications. I think you're talking about the amount of grants that we were generally, and essentially, we have a pot of money and we try to award as many grants as we can. And we just look at, you know, all the amazing projects and we just try to award as many as possible, I believe last year. And we awarded 35 for over $4 million. Does the church have to report this grant money as income. That's a good question. I don't know, Tiffany, do you know the answer to that question of whether the church has to report this grant money as income. We do not require you to report it as income. Again, that's going to be dependent on your financial structure and what you might need to report as income. Generally, again, if your internal church budget requires, you know, you to indicate this is funding that is coming in that would be on you all. It's not a grant for profit direction, but we do not require again we are a not for profit of 501 C3 a granting entity, and we're granting it to other 501 C3 so if you are a organization 501 C3 and you have to submit your IRS nine that may mean you might have to indicate that as grant funding you received over the last calendar fiscal year. But again, you that is the IRS requiring it, not us and as long as the funding was granted for a specific purpose, you should be in compliance for your 501 C3 status. If you are applying for organizational capacity building and operations grants, and you give a general guidance for what types of staff positions meet the funding guidelines. We noted that salaries for religious or clergy are not allowed with communications or stewardship meet the standards. Also, if there are new positions can funding be used for technology or software relevant to the position. That's probably something that we could discuss offline but we're basically a lot what we funded before our preservation related positions fundraising positions. Those types of positions that are going to help you ultimately preserve and sustain the building and that can look like a lot of different things. We can certainly, I hope that's helpful. If it's not, or if you need more detail about that email us at black churches at saving places.org and we can get into that in a little bit more detail but preservation sort of positions that are going to help you preserve and sustain this building and a lot what that looks like is preservation management, fundraising program management, things of that nature, but we can go into that in a little bit more detail. What are the tax consequences by receiving this grant. We really don't deal with that that end of it. This is not a federal grant, we are not a federal agency, we don't, we don't have you report any of that. So, I unfortunately I can't speak to that. Again, do remember this, we are not for profit ourselves we are granting entity so we are granting grant funds to other not for profit specific for purposes related to preservation of black churches and so tax consequences we that is not in our purview, and we're not granting it to for profit entities or private individuals as well. So, they are going to not for profit organizations or tax exempt organizations and so other than keeping your other IRS reporting requirements for your not for profit that you know tax implications are not to be considered on our side with this grant. Can somebody put the application link the preview of the application link in the in the chat again. Our specific vendors beds required for input input on application is national historic site site site site is required before application. So first there is no requirement for national historic site status. Either before or after the application. And in terms of vendor bids again, first of all, it's only if the portion of the work that you're talking about is $50,000 or more. And again, if you if you're having any issues with that, just being conversations with us at black churches that saving places.org and we can discuss that. Is this program limited to African American churches or does other religious communities qualify such as historical African American mosques. So, on a case by case basis, we can consider other non Christian denominations. So please do be in conversation with us because on a case by case basis, we can consider non Christian denominations. Do the project planning programming interpretation and organizational capacity building operation grants have to be related to a capital project. No. So these are all separate categories. So, project planning doesn't have to necessarily be related to a capital project. For all sorts of things. Same with programming and interpretation and capacity building so no so the quick answer is no, it doesn't have to be related to a capital project or all sorts of other projects that you could do under those categories that are not related to a capital project. And then are these reimbursement grants or will awardees receive the funds once the contract is signed. So what happens is, if you are awarded funds, you'll receive a grant agreement, and depending on what type of Let me stop her for a quick sec because I'm sort of seeing two different chats happening. We're asking questions in the in the webinar chat if you could actually put those in the q amp a function so that we can make sure to get your question. I am answering if you put it in the q amp a Leslie is answering live I am typing in some answers to the question so. Okay, so you have that Tiffany. And Leslie will continue to answer one. Um, so what'll happen is, um, once you sign your grant agreement, and depending on what type of project it is, you'll get an initial payment. You'll get an initial lump sum, some of money. And then you'll get an additional lump sum up some money. And another point of time in the project so depending on what type of project is you'll either get in the middle in the end or at the end. But you'll get a part of the money upfront and a part of the money later. So the next question is current church structure opened in 1976 it replaced a historic structure destroyed in a fire in 1972. Church has owned and serve the community from this site without interruption since 1867 interested in project planning grants, any basic eligibility concerns. So it sounds like. The original building isn't there. My concern is that you basically don't have a historic building there for us to work with if I'm reading this correctly. Right current church structure opened in 1976. So that building is less than 50 years old. Um, let me look at how so that building would be about 47 years old. Well, I'll sorry Leslie, I'll jump in. So we did have this come up last year in the grant cycle and what we advised if your building is close to 50 years say within five years. Let's have a conversation so we understand the significance and we will give consideration so if it's 25 years old. But if it is within five years of 50, we will consider it, but we probably want to know more information on the history, the context, the building and significant. So if that's the case, I would email black churches at saving places.org so we can have a better understanding of the project and the building. Sorry. Thanks, Tiffany. If we have already identified a consultant and had preliminary plans of what we need done through a building inspection should we still only apply for the planning grant or we'd be eligible for capital projects without full engineering architectural plans. So, if you have already done. Planning work. Then as part of so with your capital project as part of that. There's 15% allow to actually get your. Planning documents done. But we will need to, but we will need to have some enough plans to actually see what you're doing. So, so you do so as long as you have enough of a plans that we can tell what your project is. But if what you're saying is that you don't sort of have your permit documents. That's fine because if you were grant if you get the capital grants 15% of that you could use to actually develop those engineering and architectural plans. We need to have enough of a plan for us to be able to tell what what you're actually doing. Okay. Next is our all estimates and architectural drawings or electrical design that's required to be completed when you apply for a capital improvement project. If you do not have all of them yet which is put suggest applying for planning part of the growth. So again, it depends. I think the capital project is definitely our most competitive grant. And so my question for what for you would be, if you've done the planning work but just don't have all of your drawing. So the question is, have you, do you have you done the actual planning work, and do you have enough of a plan to show us what you're doing. If the issue is just that you don't have. If you have enough of a permit sets, you can, if you were to get, again, if you were to get the grant you could use part of your capital funds to get that. But if you haven't done enough planning to be able to show us what you're doing, then you're probably more at the planning stage. So it says how, how do you determine if the capital project is maintenance instead of capital. I'm trying to understand. I mean, I think part of that is probably a kind of planning question. And that is, have you had someone come in and sort of look at your building and sort of tell you what needs to be done. Do you have a full understanding of what needs to happen at your building. Because a capital project could be a capital project could be anything from restoring your windows to repointing your brick to replacing your roof to, you know, there's all sorts of to, you know, repairing your plaster. I mean, so some of that could, so it depends on what your definition of maintenance is. But capital projects looks, it's both, it could be a big project and it could be a tiny project. So it could be that we need to discuss your project a little bit for us to have a little bit of better understanding of what what's going on at your church. Um, so I, what I might suggest is that you reach out to us at black churches that same places.org so we can have a little bit of a better understanding of what's going on your project. Um, because from my point of view, if you need work done on your project, it sort of doesn't matter whether it's, you know, maintenance or like what the label is, if there's an issue at your church, where not doing it could be an issue at your church because we want to make sure that it's preserved and sustained. So if you have that sort of issue at your church, then we want to help you with it if we can. So why don't you email us and let us know a little bit more about your project. Does the church application be from a historical membership but has moved out of the historical building. Um, so maybe the question is whether it's a maybe it's a non active church, maybe. It sounds, it sounds like maybe it's a non active church. And if it's a non active church, that's, that's perfectly fine. It could still be eligible. It just might be eligible for less money. Um, so I need to know a little bit more about the situation and again just, you know, feel free to reach out to us and let us know a little bit more about your project but non active churches or non active congregations can can can apply. We have the question about drop the link of the application of PDF which we did do. There's a question, can you repeat the reasons why proposals are not funded. And so, just to summarize, some of the reasons why proposals are not funded is lack of clarity in the budget. Lack of clarity around how the project is going to positively impact preserving and sustaining the building. Lack of clarity about how once the project would be funded that the project would be ready to go. Lack of clarity around historic significance. I would say that is some of the big reasons why projects are funded, not funded, but the other really big reason why projects are funded I mean I will say that we got, I think around 1300 letters of intent. Um, last year, so a really big need with some really amazing. You know, projects from across this country. Um, so that's the other really big reason. Our church has an association with NHL local landmark that was once owned and stewarded by us that is now owned by the city we are in this landmark was recently renamed to honor our founding pastor. We are working with the city to determine how to convey the name change and our church legacy of the property how do we express that in this application and can we apply if the city applies as well. So, I would really suggest. First of all, if, if the city owns the property, you would need permission from the city to apply. So you're, you're always going to need permission of the whole of the property owner to apply and in a situation like this. So no, so unless you have permission from the property owner to apply, you wouldn't able to both be applied. You would be able to both apply. That's the first thing. Hopefully it's a situation where maybe you could work together but I obviously don't know what the situation is. In terms of how you, let's say you could get permission from the city to apply you could work together. How do you express this. And I'm assuming you're trying to express sort of the importance of the renaming, maybe, and that can be done and as part of the significance section is talking about the importance of the pastor and then the name change and making sure to tie and this gets back to an earlier question about, you know, whether something has to be of national significance and something like that is, if this pastor is important locally, then talk about why that pastor is important locally and so important locally that there's this name change. So, so just, just talk about that as as best you can is and as succinctly as you can. For capital projects must three contractors be provided with the application or can choose quotes just be included in the application. Again, try your best with the three bids. If you can't, you know, just let us know let's let's talk about it. Leslie, can I jump in and answer this question because I think it might be relevant to sure. I'll go right ahead. So someone asked we are applying for a capital project and have plans done and are about to begin the permit and city approval process we anticipate having permits by January. Will this be considered ready to go. It would be considered ready to go but keep in mind that if you are awarded capital funding part of our process before we distribute funds as we do have to approve the scope of work to ensure that it is preservation and meeting that criteria and standards. So if you do have your plans approved by the city or have your permits that does not guarantee that we will automatically approve those plans. So just make sure to factor that into your schedule that if you are awarded funding, you will have to submit your scope of work again which we reviewed by our senior preservation architect to ensure that it is meeting preservation standards. So once that is approved, then we will follow what is laid out in the grant agreement in terms of dispersing funds. So I just want everyone to keep that in mind. Thanks, Tiffany. So the next question is about bids but we've gone over this a few times. The next question is about the grantee selection committee and that's comprised of staff. Yes, so our grantee with all of our grants is an internal process with staff of the National Trust and the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. So on this program does not involve external reviewers. And next question is again about the bidding process. The next question. So does this grant apply to installing an elevator or accessibility options in a historically black church. So this actually came up a lot last year, and accessibility is really, really important, especially in churches with aging population. And what we found is that almost a lot. The immediate answer was to install a elevator or the proposal was to install an elevator or install lift. And what we want for churches to really consider is looking at accessibility of their of their whole church, because there's more to accessibility. It's not just an elevator. It's the site. It's hearing impaired. It's site impaired. It's how you enter the site. It's, it's more than just the elevator. And so for those who are interested in accessibility. What we're asking is that first. You look at a planning grant that if you haven't done planning. Accessibility that the first thing we would want you to apply for is a planning grant to really look at your church as a whole around accessibility and to really do look at an accessibility plan for your whole church. And if you've already done the planning for that, then to look at applying for a capital grant for accessibility. That in general for accessibility because it's, it's such an important thing for churches. The next question is our church was located next to the cemetery built during the 1800s, but was rebuilt years ago on location that is not near the cemetery now. Does this keep us from being able to apply for funding for restoration. Can we apply for funding to have our cemetery promoted through community tours or as part of teaching programs or school children. So the great thing is that, while our, our grants for cemeteries do not cover capital improvements, it does cover planning. So in terms of sort of the idea of teaching programs or, or promotion or something like that. That would be something more that would fall under planning for our cemetery for cemetery grants. It does need to be directly associated and owned by the historic black church, and that, and that church needs to meet the eligibility requirements. The question is, it does say the church was rebuilt. The question for me, I think I need to know a little bit more about the situation. To be able to answer this properly, so I need to know more about the church now, because it sounds like the church that it was originally associated with is no longer there. I think a little bit more information is needed. So, why don't you contact us at on black churches at famous place.org so we can talk about this a little bit more. So we can get a little bit more information. The next question is if the church is more than 50 years, but the building is not. So perhaps maybe you're saying the congregation is older than 50 years, but the building is not. Is the church still eligible. It would depend on exactly how old the building was to Tiffany's point earlier about buildings that were maybe 45 to 50 years. So, we might need a little bit more information in this case to understand how exactly how old the building in question is. So, maybe context us directly so we could know a little bit more about your, about your situation. The next question is how do supportive letters to be written and presented and and do they need to be on certain letter heads depending on where they come from. I wouldn't say we're going to be picky on on the letter heads. You know, you can, you know, whatever sort of supportive letters you want to submit will be fine. Again, the only thing that we do really want to see again is something indicating that you have permission and support to actually submit this project and application. Hey, I'm in Alaska some people are having issues with the link to the PDF application. Can you all explain what they should be seeing when they go to that link that we share. They should just be seeing the application. Someone says I use the link and it takes me to view application forms without creating account click here but when I click here it doesn't show a sample application. So maybe if you all could just check on that while we're here in the call. Yes, I'm sharing my screen right now but I'm wondering if Leslie, if Kelly, you can look into that really quickly and see what's happening there. Yeah, because the link that I, let's see. Because I just clicked on the link I have here. And it's working. Let me try this. Let's see if this one works. I'm just going to put the questions but if Alaska and Kelly, maybe if you all could check on that and just put the link back in the chat. So we're working on that you all. And again, we will send out all of the links after the session as well to those. This one works I just put one that I just checked myself that should lead just directly to a preview. So the link should just lead to the application form it won't allow you to actually apply. It's a PDF that just allows you to look at the question. Great someone says that that work. Thank you Ariana. Sorry. So it's eight o'clock I'm happy to stay on and keep answering questions but I do want to respect people's time. And go another 10 minutes and answer questions live. We do have the questions in the Q&A so even if we don't get to them on this webinar. If you go ahead and enter them and we can follow up and update our FAQ, but it's important to remember. What we do is really address the questions that apply to everyone. If it's about your specific church, your specific request email black churches at savingplaces.org so we can start setting up one on one appointments and we'll have more time to go in depth with you on your project so you can email right now black churches at savingplaces.org and we'll start following up with those appointments. Yeah. See I'm just going to scroll through these. So you don't need to step so there's a question about a church that has different sections to it, you can just apply for the church as a whole. There's a question is our church building is more than 100 years old built by former slaves the roof caved in after a storm in 2020 destroying the front part but leaving the back part intact can we apply for capital funding for the remaining part that is standing. That would be a question that I would ask you to email Black church directly on that. Yes. I'm seeing a lot of questions about combining projects for capital projects. It is okay if you have a couple of multiple small projects to combine it into one overall request for your church. Then if you email black churches at savingplaces.org, we can give you guidance on how best to structure that in your application. Someone is asking a question about LOI feedback from last year. What we can do is if you email us at black churches at savingplaces.org. If there were comments left from the reviewers from the last cycle. It would be best to get those comments to you so email us with the name of your church, and then we will look up those comments and get back to you as soon as possible. Leslie someone asked about the endowment grant and I think this might be our first question we had about the endowment and they want to know. The endowment grant can our existing endowment funds be sufficient for matching funds. No. Oh, sorry. Yes. The endowment funding category and financial sustainability is to grow existing preservation endowments or maintenance endowments as you already have or to create new endowments. If you have an existing endowment, you can apply for matching funds for the value of that endowment as it currently exists, but during the application process we do ask you to show proof of that existing endowment that it's invested the balance and you again it's a one to one match that you cannot apply for more than what you have on hand. You can still apply if you have an existing endowment and you don't want to use those funds at match but maybe you want to have a campaign to raise additional funds, and that could be the match so that is eligible if you do have existing funds already again, they have to be currently invested in an endowment and for the purpose of preservation or maintenance of the building. I'm going to put the pay up somebody's asking for the PDF I'm going to put it in the chat one more time. So there's still so many questions and I'm sorry we couldn't get to all of them in this session but we are going to answer all of your questions in the q amp a, and I do want to thank all of you for joining us. We have another q amp a session, but tomorrow night it's a little later than this one it's at 9pm Eastern standard to get to our folks on the West Coast, but if you do want to stay up later you're welcome to join us tomorrow night. I do just want to thank you so much for joining us.