 Hi everyone. Welcome back to the forum webinar series. I'm Tiffany Talbert, Senior Field Officer with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and I'll be administering the webinar today. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is a professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum, and we sincerely thank you, those of you who are with us today. Today's webinar is focused on the Historic Gleek Black Colleges and Universities Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently launched the HBCU Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative as part of our African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. This program is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the JPB Foundation, the JM Kaplan Fund, and the Executive Leadership Council. The program intends to strengthen the stewardship capacity of HBCUs and to ensure these vital institutions are equipped to preserve and maintain their deeply significant historic buildings, landscapes, and other assets. The National Trust is now accepting applications for funding through the HBCU initiative. Today you will hear from the National Trust and National Endowment for the Humanities who will share information on the initiative, its goals, the grant program, and how to apply. Before we begin, I have a few technical things. If you would like to share what you're hearing today, there are a couple of options. You can download a PDF of today's slides directly from the header mark handouts on your control panel. We will also send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email you used to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. We will share this address at the end of our presentation. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. You should see an option to send questions to staff and your control panel. If you have questions during the webinar, you're welcome to submit at any point during the presentation. Next slide. Now we'll turn over the program to Brent Legs, Executive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank you for joining our webinar. And we are delighted to spend space and time with you today. I would like to invite out to my colleague Tiffany Tolbert for her leadership as a project manager for this new initiative. And I want to extend our gratitude to our signature partner, the National Endowment for Humanities. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, we are inspired by the awe and sublime beauty across the HBCU cultural landscape. All of your historic buildings were built by Black hands, students, and architects. Together, you hold the most diverse collection of African American historic places to tell the story of Black resilience, activism, and achievement. We are using HBCUs on America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list in 1999. The National Trust has been building our own capacity. And finally have gotten to this moment where we are piloting this new cultural heritage stewardship initiative with the long-term goal of scaling up our investment in the preservation and planning activities at HBCUs. And we want to go beyond what the Getty Foundation did several years ago when they funded the development of eight HBCU campus-wide preservation plants. With this $1 million investment, we will fund two campus-wide plans and up to six individual building preservation plans. We see these plans as replicable models for other HBCUs and a roadmap for the preservation of these important campuses and building. In essence, we see HBCU campuses as cultural assets, and we are working hard to increase the financial value of these exceptionally significant historic places. I have the good fortune of leading our signature program, which is called the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. This was born in the aftermath of the tragic events in Charlottesville. We all remember seeing white nationalists with tiki torches rallying around the Thomas Jefferson sculpture, advocating for a new form, a new contemporary form of Jim Crow. We wanted to demonstrate that historic preservation could be a tool and a pathway for equity and justice. Our work is to expand the American story. This campaign is a $25 million campaign in partnership with the Ford Foundation, JPB, and so many others. And I'm glad to say that some of our programming includes our national grant program where we have invested in 65 important preservation projects across the United States and invested almost $5 million in their future preservation. When we invited proposals, we've received almost 2000 proposals, requesting nearly $190 million. This affirms that African American historic places are underfunded and undervalued, and it also affirms why the Action Fund is critically important. And it's setting the blueprint for redefining a new American culture and identity and reshaping and innovating preservation practice in the United States. In essence, our partnership together is creating more room and space for diverse voices and leaders to advocate on behalf of Black culture and Black assets. So I want to ask for your help. Join us in this effort and become a partner with us. Spread the word across the more than 100 HBCUs, we are hoping to be inundated with proposals to fully understand the preservation needs of HBCUs. And we look to partner with the executive leadership all the way down to students to create something that will have a long and lasting cultural impact. And most importantly, we think that HBCUs is the epicenter for helping us to cultivate the next generation of Black professionals in the cultural preservation movement. This is just the beginning. We are delighted that you are here with us today, and we are excited to be able to launch this new $1 million HBCU Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative through the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Now I want to introduce our partner and colleague, Mary Downs, who works at the National Endowment for the Humanity. Hi there. Thank you very much, Brent, for that introduction. I'm Mary Downs. I'm a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities. As you know, NEH is an independent federal agency that supports and advances the humanities in education, public programming and research, and in preservation and access to humanities, materials, history and collections. We have an annual budget appropriated by Congress of about 150 million, which is distributed to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions across the country, and to our 56 State Humanities Councils, that is in all 50 states and the territories. NEH has long supported the work of students and faculty at HBCUs through our humanities initiatives at HBCUs and faculty fellowships at HBCUs. Through the history of NEH, which was founded in 1965, NEH has supported HBCUs and faculty and students at HBCUs through a variety of initiatives. We've also long supported preservation of humanities collections and have supported the preservation of important archives, art, newspaper and photograph collections at HBCUs, many of which are available via links on our websites. I just want to give a shout out to our colleagues at the National Trust, Brent Legs and Tiffany Talbert and others in the work that we have done together to create this partnership for the fund that will support the stewardship initiative for historic preservation at HBCUs. We partnered with the National Trust because they were the appropriate entity to partner to advance this initiative. It's an honor for us to partner with the National Trust. We identified this as an area where it complemented our commitment to preservation, to education in general, and to African American education. We're excited to see the work of this initiative move forward and to strengthen the capacity for preservation and education at HBCUs. I invite you to be in touch about this initiative or about any other programs at NEH that might interest you. Thank you. Thank you, Brent and Mary. Now I'm going to give an overview of the initiative and the grant program. Through the HBCU initiative, the National Trust is seeking to partner with up to eight HBCUs to provide targeted assistance to increase their capacity for preserving and improving campus facilities. We see this initiative as an opportunity to directly assist HBCUs with developing solutions to preserve their historic buildings and campuses. I will go over our grant guidelines and the initiative goals. However, for more detailed information, do visit our website, www.savingplaces.org, HBCU. Next slide. To inform and advise the National Trust, an esteemed community of national leaders in campus planning, architecture, preservation practice, and landscape design have joined the HBCU Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative Advisory Committee. The advisory committee will serve as a resource for HBCUs and the National Trust as they identify preservation issues and develop solutions. Next slide. Through the initiative, we're seeking to do a number of things. First, provide direct grant funding to HBCUs to hire qualified consultants, provide targeted preservation expertise and support to HBCUs. Advance the humanities and cultural landscape by increasing visibility for African American historic sites on the campus of these institutions. Establish new relationships between HBCUs, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Trusts. And we want to increase capacity and sustainability of HBCUs to administer larger funding and grant awards. We want to create a network for information sharing and mentoring HBCUs consultants and the preservation movement. We want to also support HBCU administrative deliberation on decisions impacting historic resources on their campuses, while equipping administrators with the training and tools to support the development of creative preservation strategies. Next slide. The main feature of the initiative, which will allow us to accomplish these goals is the grant program, which will provide direct funding to HBCUs to develop cultural heritage stewardship plans. As you know, the grant cycle is now open and we're inviting HBCUs to submit letters of intent for funding to hire qualified consultants to complete either campus wide or single site stewardship plans. The accredited HBCUs are eligible to apply. For the purpose of this program, eligible HBCUs are defined as those accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the Secretary of Education to be a reliable authority as the quality of training offered. We're referring to the White House initiative on HBCUs for the list of accredited schools. However, if your school is not included on that list, but is accredited by an association recognized by the Secretary of Education. We're asking that you indicate that in your LOI or contact us to confirm your eligibility prior to submitting your application. If the applicant must own all properties that have been included in the planning project and previous grantees are eligible if all reporting requirements are current with the National Trust. Next slide. The HBCU grant initiative grant is for consulting planning services in two categories, campus wide planning and individual site planning. Grant funding will be awarded in the amount of $150,000 for campus wide plan and $60,000 for individual site plans. Matching funds are not required for this program. However, institutions are encouraged to consider ways to provide additional resources, whether in kind or cash. There's more detail about campus wide and cultural stewardship plans in a moment, but first let me highlight some guidelines that are applicable for both categories. Historic buildings are those constructed prior to 1980. We're encouraging schools to consider their mid-century and late 20th century resources and planning efforts. Next, planning activities for landscapes can include campus yards, open space and cemeteries. Also, we're encouraging schools for both individual sites and campus wide plans to consider the landscape and how it relates to the buildings and campus resources. Also, planning activities for cultural assets can include monuments, currently operating museums and art collections. However, cultural assets are eligible if they clearly connect to the physical campus and culture and are housed in historic buildings. For individual site planning, the grant funds can be used for development of the plan you see listed on the screen for the resources I mentioned above. Also, an individual site can include multiple buildings, two to three, if they are contiguously connected and are shared historical and design significance. For example, designed by the same architect of the original use and period of construction. This is also an opportunity to look at how a resource relates to the landscape on which it stands. And eligible activities are construction or capital projects or acquisition. The funds can only be used for planning consultant services. Lastly, up to 10% of the award grant can be used for indirect or administrative costs. For example, for a campus wide grant of $150,000, the maximum amount of administrative costs would be $15,000. So when completing your LOI, keep in mind you must select whether you are applying for a campus wide or individual site grant. If you would like to apply for both, you will need to complete two separate LOIs. If you are invited to submit a full proposal, you will only be invited to apply for a funding in one category. If you are not sure which category is more applicable to your institution, please contact us for assistance. Next slide. For those seeking to apply for a campus wide plan, I want to share the priority elements we are looking for each plan to contain. We all know the critical role HBCUs play in the cultural landscape in this country's history, yet often their preservation is overlooked and underfunded. This has led to deferred maintenance, vacancy, and loss of many of its important buildings due to demolition. The initiative is looking to counter this trend by supporting the development of cultural heritage stewardship plans. Generally, stewardship plans will establish a future direction or vision for cultural preservation and promote specific ways to achieve that vision in a clear, concise framework. As a part of the initiative, developed campus plans should include an analysis and identification of priority buildings, an evaluation of the full collection of historic buildings, landscapes, and cultural assets on the campus, identify significant spaces, and consider new uses and activities in support of the institution's mission while also preserving architectural character. They should inform the campus master plan regarding preservation of historic resources. If the institution has a master plan, this process could be used to incorporate the vision into the plan and or make sure preservation goals align with growth and development goals. Also, we want the planning process to engage HBCU students and design planning and preservation. So as you assemble your LOI, think about how students can be involved and connect with consultants, the administration, and the project team as a part of the planning process. We will feel more information on how the initiative, we feel this is important so that the initiative can support a more diverse and equitable field of practice in the next generation of HBCU students. Next slide. We want to make you aware of a few things as you're assembling your LOI. Some of the criteria we're asking your institutions to meet and demonstrate include historic and cultural significance of the campus and its resources. Institutional leadership support. As I mentioned, one of the goals of the program is to support administrative decisions regarding preservation. So we're asking applicants to demonstrate that its executive leadership is supportive of undertaking this planning process. Letters of support are required to be submitted from both institutions, president and board of trustees. These are the only two letters of support that are required. Please do not submit letters of support from partners, elected officials or community organizations during this phase of the grant cycle. The ability to engage students in this planning process is also a priority criteria as well. The full application part of the grant cycle will ask for more detail information on your plans for student engagement. However, in the project description of the LOI, you can demonstrate your commitment to engaging students in this process. For example, if your institution has an architecture, preservation or planning program, it will be helpful to indicate how this process could connect to faculty and students in those departments. A match is not required for this grant program. However, if your institution has the potential to match either with cash or in-kind support, this can be included in the LOI. Note that the LOI does ask for estimated project cost. It is not required for you to receive formal bids from consultants to supply this information in the LOI. Ideas for gathering this information can include discussion with consultants in your area regarding a general fee scale based on the type of project or using institutional knowledge from past planning efforts your institution has undertaken. If you are having an issue with supplying this information, again, please contact us to discuss prior to submitting your LOI. Lastly, in order to demonstrate capacity, the LOI will ask whether you will be able to assemble a project team to manage the grant and planning process. We're looking for the project team to have representation, not just from your executive leadership, but faculty, students, and your facility's office. Those invited to submit a full proposal will be asked to share names, titles, and details of their project team. However, please use the LOI to plan how to assemble the team and identify potential members. The letter of intent is due October 30th. In a minute, I will turn the presentation over to Diana Maxwell, Senior Manager of Grants, to discuss how to submit your LOI into our grant system. But please note the full grant schedule. Decisions on LOIs will be sent on November 20th. For those invited to submit full proposals, the application will be due on December 18th. We will have detailed information on the full application process and guidelines once schools are notified. And the final awards will be announced in February of 2021. Before I turn the presentation over to Diana, I want to share how the initiative will work with awarded HBCUs to the grant program. More detailed information will be provided once final awards are made. However, HBCUs are selected or receive continued support from the National Trust in a few years, in a few areas. For technical assistance, HBCUs will work with trust staff to develop their RFPs for consultant services and develop scopes of work. We want to support you all with technical assistance in this way to ensure plans include the components of a stewardship plan I mentioned earlier. We would like to be available for site visits as well. However, this will be determined on a case by case basis and consultation with the trust and HBCUs. We realize that due to COVID, we need to be flexible and respectful of local and national guidelines, so we will maintain open communication about when and if site visits can occur. We will host quarterly meetings with your team and consultants to address any issues or challenges that you are facing during the planning process. Trust staff will be available for assistance as well as the advisory committee that there are specialized issues that can benefit from their support and knowledge. Lastly, an equally important company of the initiative is the connection of HBCUs to the humanities field. So we will work with you to identify and elevate the story or institution nationally through new content, experiences, and opportunities for engagement. At the end of the planning process, we will convene the grantees, their teams, and consultants together to discuss their plans and next steps for implementation. We will also host a national discussion with our stakeholders, funders, and HBCU leaders on the status and preservation of HBCUs based on the results of this work and grant program. And lastly, throughout this process, we want to identify ways to create a peer-to-peer community between schools, students, and consultants that share the lessons learned. We know that every school will not be funded and our consultants selected, but if there are smaller consulting firms that could benefit from shadowing with a larger firm as part of this process, that is a connection we want to promote. And if there's a school with similar issues that could benefit from being mentored by another HBCU going through the process, again, we want to encourage those relationships. Now, you will hear from Diana Maxwell, Senior Manager of Grants, to discuss the application process and grant system. Thanks, Tiffany. As Tiffany mentioned, I'm Diana Maxwell and I'll be sharing with you today kind of a walkthrough of how you apply using our online grant system, which is the only way that you can apply. You can't mail in a letter. It has to be through the system. I may sort of interchangeably use LOI and application. There are two steps in the process, but for the purposes of applying, it's going to look pretty much the same. So I like to start out webinars like this, just oops, excuse me. There we go. Giving you a little picture of who you're talking to when you talk to somebody in the grants office. There's three of us, myself, Nikki Van and Lizzie Beringer. And so when you send an email to our website there, grants, or to our email address grants at savingplaces.org. That's who you're talking to one of the three of us. And right now, because we're all working remotely, email is the best way to reach us. So if you have questions about the application, that's a that's the place to go. I also have the link there to the guidelines page online. And you're going to see at the bottom of that page, the link to the application. So let's dig in and get started. So when you go to that link, you're going to end up at a page that looks like this. You don't need an access code. There's a line that says enter access code there at the top, but you don't need one. And this should be the thing that you see at the top, you can see it right there, sort of halfway down the page. It says HBCU cultural heritage stewardship grants. So there's a little bit of information there. And you can preview the application without logging in. So if you want to just sort of see what it looks like before putting answers in so you can click that preview button below it. But if you preview, it won't save anything you type in there. So make sure that you're logged in in order to save the information. If you have ever applied for a grant from the National Trust before, you will be in the system. It's the same system as the Action Fund, for example, or for our preservation fund. So you can log in up there at the top, click that blue button to log in and put in your email address, and then you can reset your password to if you've forgotten it. I'll link if you have not had an account before you can log in. If you, you may get an error message if you or someone from your school has applied before that the tax EIN number is already being used. So that's just sort of a warning. So let us know that and we can get you set up if you think you've had an account recently. But, you know, if it's something where someone who no longer works there set up the account seven years ago and, you know, the information is not really correct anymore. Go ahead and set up your own account. We can merge them together on the back end. And, and then you don't need to worry about waiting for an answer from us. This is particularly if we get to a point where it's the day of the deadline or very shortly before if you're very worried about getting something in and you need to sign up and set up a new login. Go ahead and just set up a new login and we'll fix it at the end. So from there, after you have logged in, you'll end up with a screen like this. And you see that the blue apply button is there. And you click that to go to the LOI or ultimately the or the application. So this is what the application page looks like. It'll have your information at the top. And if you're missing something there, you aren't able to edit that information. You can edit your applicant information to your name, email, etc. But you can't edit your organization's information. So let us know if something is wrong there or missing. And then you'll see the LOI below it. An important thing to remember about this is that only one email address can be linked to each application. So if say you are writing this but then you want to get someone else's feedback on it, or it's going to be co-written between you and another person in your school, you do have the option to collaborate. That's that blue button on the top there that says collaborate. What that will do is send an email to the person whose email you put in and you can choose various levels of allowing them to do different things. So they can just view the application, they can edit the application or they can submit the application. So depending on the relationship you have with that person and how you want to work this, that's a great option for you. They will get a link to the application, LOI, and they'll have to log in to Foundant, which is the name of our grant system, or set up their own account, just like you did. So that's a nice option if you're working on, if a team is working on this and you sort of want to look at it all together, work on it together. You can also, about halfway down the page on the right hand side, there is a gray box that says question list. That'll make a PDF of all of the questions on the LOI page. So if you want to share that with people in your group or project team, just to show the questions and have one person submit them, type them in and submit them, you can do that as well. If you have any questions about the collaboration, send us an email. It's a newer feature, but I think it can be really helpful to folks working in groups. So this shows you a little bit about kind of what the application looks like. It's split into category chunks and question types. So you'll scroll down to see the answers. Some of them are open-ended where you just sort of type an answer. Some are multiple choice and some have spots to be up to upload documents. So you want to take a look and any question with an asterisk is required to be answered. If you don't answer it, then it won't let you submit the application. You'll get an error code. One thing, if you're uploading a file and the file is too large, you won't be able to upload the file either. So sometimes, especially with photos, they can get really big. So note how large of a size it says that in brackets right next to the upload button. See how big it is and you may have to compress it down depending on how large your photo is. You don't have to fill the thing out the whole LOI out at the same time. You can fill it in and then save it and then come back to it. And so that's what I'm going to show you next is what that looks like. What you're going to do in that case is not, when you log back in, you don't want to log back into apply again. You want to go to your applicant dashboard. So what I recommend is when you first get logged in, bookmark that page. This website is not a super easy one to sort of like share with you with other than a link. So I would go ahead and just bookmark that page. And then when you go back to that, you can just log in there and you'll see your dashboard, which looks like this. And the way you get to that, if you're logged in is to hit that house button up at the top left. You see next that it says there's like little house icon and then it says apply. You click to apply, you'd go back to that original application page, which you don't want if you're coming back to the application or the LOI to work on it somewhere. What you want instead is this dashboard page, which will show you on tabs your active requests, those things that are you're working on right now. And then your historical requests, which are things you may have put in before. So you want to click on that. It says edit LOI in blue. And so you'll click on that to get back to your LOI. If you are selected to submit a full application, this is going to be the same process that will now say view LOI. Once you submitted it, and then it'll say view application edit application if you're invited back to submit a full application. So it's both of those things happen from this page. Once you've submitted the application, you can also PDF copy of it, and it's going to be the same button as that question list is going to be right next to it, and you'd be able to PDF the full application if you want to save a copy of it for the full LOI same same deal. So, sorry, backwards. There we go. So this is what the page looks like. This is the bottom of the page looks like bottom of the application of the LOI. So if you were this there's a save LOI button or submit LOI button. So you're going to want to submit it after you filled everything in. Make sure that it doesn't it won't let you save it if you have any errors. The other thing to watch out there is the character counts on the open ended questions spaces do count as characters and it'll count down at the bottom of each question to let you know how many characters you have left. So you submit, and then you're good to go you should get an email in your box about that we receive the application. Good thing to do there too and we note this at the top of the LOI is to make sure you add the email address that comes from to your application. So just tell we're going to notify you of your acceptance or non acceptance into the program. And so that you can be prepared with that information. Make sure that you get those emails and they don't go to your spam, sometimes span filters to catch them. So just some final tips to remember. If your organization is already in the system, you'll get a warning, but it is something you can click through. It's, you know, not super pressing. Let us know and we can fix it and get you set up under, under the colleges account. But if it is sort of a last minute thing and you're worried and you're pressed for time, just go ahead and set up a new application, a new account for yourself and for your school. Spaces count in the character count. Look at that information under the question to find out how many you have left. You have to answer all the questions with an asterisk. Not all of them do, but you have to answer those that do. Let us know if you have questions by emailing us and note that LOIs are due at 1159 local time. I think everybody's going to be sort of Eastern or Central. But that means that everybody has the same amount of time on the due date. And so it's not based on DC time where we are, it's based on your local time. So I think with that, we have some chance for question and answer. So I'll invite Tiffany and Mary and Brent back. And you can type your questions in the chat and Priya will read them out for us. Hi, everyone. This is Priya Chaya and sort of the tech support in the back end. Tiffany, there hasn't been any questions coming in during the session yet. I'm going to keep watching. But if you want to start with some of the ones that we're sending ahead of time, that's probably the best place to start. Sure. So we did have some questions submitted prior to the webinar and I'm going to go through and answer them. There are some that I think I did already answer during the presentation, but we will, I will still cover them again. And as Priya said, if you have questions, feel free to enter them in the chat and then we will cover them. And so the first question is, how can SHPO state historic preservation offices best assist HPC use when they are applying. So I will say that they can definitely serve as a resource for technical assistance, starting to share information on historic preservation fund grants top thinking through additional planning efforts as well as implementation through capital funding. National Register of Historic Places and eligibility for listing their historic resources. Also qualified professionals list. I know some SHPO's do maintain that where consultants have applied or included their information on these lists in certain categories of where they're qualified to work in preservation, whether it's planning, architecture, landscape design. So that might be a good place to start if schools are not sure who exactly is working in those spaces in those areas. So having a conversation with the SHPO to see if they have a list, they will not recommend which consultants to go with, but it is a good place to start if you are not familiar with what consultants are operating in your area and preservation. Next, how best can individuals help support the initiative. There's a lot that you can do if you have a HPC in your area and you're not sure if they're aware of the program sharing the initiative and information with faculty and staff is always helpful. Also as a program progressives, there will be content and stories that we will share online and through social media. So, helping us make sure those in your networks both personally and professionally or aware of this work. It will be beneficial to the program as well as the grantees as well. How can HVCU alumni help? You can help us by making sure your school is aware again of the program and raising awareness for the need of preservation and this opportunity. Also, it's important I think to make sure that your administrations know that preservation is important to their alumni and students and opportunities like this can help to cover everyone's interest in terms of preservation as well as growth and development of the school. Someone asked what we do and how can we apply? I think we've covered that, but again, I'd say there are very detailed guidelines criteria on our website. So do go to settingplaces.org HVCU to look at the full grant criteria and guidelines. Is school accreditation required? Someone just said currently pending. We do understand there are some schools that are in that situation. So, as I stated earlier, if you are not sure, do reach out to us and we can have a conversation about your particular situation and be able to make a determination before you apply. And if you want to. Sorry, Tiffany. I was just going to say we had a question come in and ask about that. And so, um, letter, if that's not sufficient information, just let us know in the chat to see if you need more info about if you're a non accredited college. Right. And if you want to set up a time to talk specifically about your LOI and your situation, email HVCU at savingplaces.org and I will reach out to you and we can set up a call to discuss. There are a number of HVCUs that are in dire need for money to support this effort. How will the schools be determined? So, the criteria I mentioned is how we will look at determining which schools are asked to submit a full proposal. But the LOI themselves will be reviewed and scored internally by trust staff. And then we will notify which schools are invited to make a full proposal. We will again be looking at historic significance, capacity, institutional leadership support opportunities for student engagement. I have on the slide also geography. We want to make sure there's a balance between urban rules of urban schools. So, we will pay attention to where schools are located. Having balance between larger institutions and smaller institutions, public and private. So those are things that we will be looking for. So demonstrating where you sit in those categories will be important. And that's how the LOIs will be scored. For the final proposal, they will be reviewed and funding will be recommended by our grant selection jury. This will be an external jury. We represent this from the National Trust, but also the National Park Service, the White House Council on HVCUs on the National Museum of African American Culture and History. We will be the advisory council of historic preservation among other entities. We will announce the full numbers of the jury next month following the LOI notifications, but they will be meeting in January to review the full proposals and make recommendations for funding to the final grantees. Next we have what are the essential requirements that determine historic assets and can we apply for multiple campus heritage sites. I think I covered this in the overview, but again focusing on those categories. I mentioned historic buildings, landscapes and cultural assets for historic resources. It's not required that they're historically designated, whether locally, state or nationally. But it does help to show that if there's an existing preservation ethic or effort on the campus, so you can indicate that in your LOI. But we also recognize that since we're historic buildings, we're talking about buildings built up to 1980. So it's understandable that they're just now hitting 50 years or have not hit 50 years, which is a standard age to consider something historic. So we don't expect those to be designated, but it's just important to really think about how the school will address those buildings and some of them are very architecturally significant as they come of age. So that's how we're being pretty general with definition of historic, but that's one thing that we will be looking at. How can I apply for multiple campus heritage sites? Again, this is where we have to think through the benefit of a campus wide plan, which will encompass again, all buildings, landscapes, those cultural assets, or maybe there's a particular area of the campus where you want to focus your preservation efforts and that might be better for individual site plans. There might be a collection of buildings, maybe it's the historic core, maybe it's a, you know, part of the more mid-century, late 20th century expansion of the campus. But again, if you want to talk through that and what fits best, do again email HBCU at savingplaces.org and we can have a conversation on what will be most applicable at this time for your school. Will the effort include opportunities to train mentor students in historic conservation? Yes. Again, opportunities to engage students in this program and this work is a priority because we want to again make the field of preservation and conservation more equitable and expose African-American and HBCU students to this as a career option. The National Trust has been working for the past few years with the National Park Service and the Vice Council of Historic Preservation and with our Hope Crew Initiative doing actual hands-on preservation at HBCU, such as Tuskegee and Morgan State. And we want to continue that as well as talk about introducing students to preservation and design and planning. So there will be opportunities for that. Members of the trust team for the initiative will be developing a plan for how you can implement introducing students and connecting them to the consultants that are working on this project as well as the other experts and getting them exposed to this field. So we do want to encourage mentoring as you go through this process. And someone said I'd like to get information about online classes. We won't be offering online classes, but I hope that we will. I will not hope. We will have different webinars and opportunities for training around the initiative as we pull out lessons that are being learned by the grantees. And so that there will be many opportunities to learn more information about these schools as well as the work that's going into the planning that we hope can be shared broadly around the country. So those are all the questions that were submitted online. We have a bunch. Yeah, we have a bunch now. They've been rolling in. So I think this first one is for Diana. I noticed there was a request for pictures. What pictures are you looking for? Yeah, it says on the application, but we're looking for current photos. I think we ask for at least two and up to four current photos that sort of show the exterior of the building. We also ask for a campus map. So there's instructions in the photo section. Great. And then Heather wants to know how does a campus status on the National Register factor into the grant application? Their campus is currently going through the process, but it hasn't been listed yet. Again, as I said, it's not a requirement, but there is space on there for you to indicate if it is listed or again in the process of being listed. So you can just indicate that it's eligible for the National Register and going through the review process and that would be sufficient. Great. Do you have a list of HBCUs that are already on board? No, because we are in the application process. So we don't have a final list of those that have applied. So we do not. That's the answer there. Since this program is about hiring preservation consultants, does there already need to be a commitment of funds for historical, for historic preservation at the university? No, there doesn't need to be a commitment of funds if it is something that is already in the campus budget and being taken into consideration. Again, you can indicate that because that helps demonstrate capacity and commitment, but it is not required that you've already allocated funds for this work. Sorry, I think a lot of these are for you, Tiffany. What is the building age range for individual projects? Again, in general, both for historic buildings, whether it's in the campus wide plan or individual site, it's buildings built prior to 1980. And then the sixth question is a little bit different from when we had gotten ahead of time about how alumni can help, but it wants to know specifically if you support HBCU alumni chapters in clubs. So I think it's essentially asking if they can apply for funds. No, only the institutions the HBCUs can apply. So not for profits, preservation organizations, alumni associations cannot apply for these funds. Can the grant money be put towards interpretive material for the built environment such as digital media, exhibition, signage, et cetera? No, this is a planning grant, so it cannot be used for implementation and production of materials such as interpretive exhibits. So it can only be used for consulting services. There could be, depending on your scope of work, there could be looking at, you know, some interpretation as part of the plan, but not actually producing the physical materials. So no capital projects brick and mortar work or exhibits is allowable to be used with these funds. But I would put it there may be other funds from the National Trust that could be used for those types of projects. And if you go to the website, you should find more information there. That's okay. And that website actually is forum.savingplaces.org slash funding. And sorry, I was forgetting if it's fine funding or funding, but it's also pretty easy to navigate to from the homepage, which is forum.savingplaces.org. The next question is about Tougaloo College specifically, but I think it's one that applies to lots of other places of the schools is, in a campus-wide plan, could we include our landscapes, for example, our historic live folks? Say that again, Priya. They want to know if they can include landscapes as part of the preservation plan. Specifically, trees is what this person is asking about. Yes, yes, landscape is not only the design, but I, and I'm not a landscape architect, but there is always consideration in those plans for the actual trees, vegetation and things like that. So yes, and I think when we work with a school on their scope of work or RFP, given their situation or what they're concerned about, we can highlight those things that you might like a consultant to take into consideration as they're planning because it is an issue for you. Great. So from Franklin, this is actually another accreditation question. So Franklin, I'm going to actually suggest based on what you put in here that you email Tiffany directly at that email she suggested, because it sounds like yours might be a case that it'll just be easier to talk to her directly. So I'm just answering that for you, Tiffany. Can the consultants hire our students to help with their work, for example, digital documentation and surveying? Yes, I think that would be a great opportunity for students and we can work with you on what that looks like. So depending again, depending on the scope, if you've identified a role for students to engage with your project, that could be something that could work because the grant funds can be used to, you know, for the consultants if they need to subcontract for particular skill sets based on what they're trying to develop that can be done with the grant funds as well. And then this is a clarifying question. If institutions are interested in campus-wide and individual site plans, then two LOIs are required, but institutions will only be accepted for one. Yes, so when we notify, if we're notifying you to submit a full proposal, we would indicate which of those we will accept a proposal from you. Oh, okay. Can the university's foundation apply for the grant or does it have to come from the university side? It has to come from the university side. Let's see, this one's a longer one. This individual is writing on behalf of a landscape architecture firm. Is there a way for a design firm to be considered for this work? They've got solid experience. But I think you've answered this already, but it has to be the university that applies and not. Yeah, it has to be the university that applies, but because the way the program will be set up, again, the funds will be directed directly to the schools that we granted directly to the schools. And then the schools will handle their own procurement process and we will assist them again with the RFP and scope of work. So any contracting will be done directly with the school. If you are a consulting firm that's interested in the program, if you do want to email HBCUSADNplaces.org, just to say we're interested, we would like to assemble a list of firms that are interested. And if necessary, we can provide those to schools and then it will be on them to pursue contacting you all directly about either responding to an RFP. So we've already received requests like that from consultants. So again, if you want to email your information just to us, we can keep that in our records and we'll have that available to schools if they request. Great. And I think that I'll actually answer Tim's question because it was about supporting the work in some way. So Tim, go ahead and email Tiffany or wherever else is meaning that email address. So another question I think you answered, and what's the maximum amount that an institution can be awarded? The maximum amount is $150,000 for a campus-wide plan and $60,000 for an individual site. And I should say that that will be the grant amount. So if you are awarded a campus-wide plan grant, it will be for $150,000. If you're awarded an individual site grant, it will be for $60,000. So again, we're looking to partner with up to eight schools and that is two campus-wide plans, six individual site plans. So that is the way we're looking to allocate the funding. So it will be a flat grant for those amounts. Yeah. And then, so this is the last question I have. I think there was one more in here that disappeared. So if you asked a question and you haven't heard it answered yet, please resubmit it. We have a couple more minutes. But this last question, I think you answered the first part about can one college apply for both? But the second half of the question is what are the differencing factors about how you determine which one will be accepted to move on? So for the LOI, the determining factors will be in terms of the scoring capacity, the storage significance, institutional leadership support. So in the review, there will be scores assigned to those numbers. And that's how we will determine who is requested to submit a full proposal. So when you get the follow-up email for this presentation, one, you can look at that slide again. Also, there's a very detailed in the grant guidelines on our website of the criteria that we will be scoring the applications based on. And then the LOI, you will see where you fill in that information. So that is what we will look at to determine who will be recommended to submit a full proposal. And then we will have additional guidelines for the full proposal round with more details on the criteria for the review and recommendations by the external jury on that phase of the grant cycle. Great. And we're getting a lot of thank yous in here for the work. But that's all the questions I have. So if you want to tell them a little bit more about the other forum stuff, that'd be great. Thanks, Tiffany. Sure. Well, thank you all so much for your participation and your wonderful questions. As a forum, we want to encourage you to keep talking so you can keep this discussion going on our forum connect. This is our online community for people in the business of saving places. We have active conversations happening all week around topics from section 106 to women's history at historic sites. If you haven't joined connect yet, you should. It's a great place to keep up with this conversation and start more next slide. Again, we also want to keep you learning. So also don't forget to take advantages of some additional resources on preservation leadership forum and opportunities to engage with the National Trust. Here are a couple. This week, the National Trust released a new report entitled preserving African American places growing preservation potential as a path for equity. This report engages the preservation movement and further conversation and a call to action around a key question. How can preservation be a force for equity and social justice and African American neighborhoods in our communities of color. As many atc us are increasingly impacted by changing neighborhood demographics and its impact on architecture and culture. We invite you to explore this study and supporting materials as we seek to understand the implications of different forms of place based injustice and their impact on the preservation on African American cultural heritage. Our annual conference passport 2020 is on going online this year and it's only a few weeks away. So be sure to take part in this virtual event. This year's conference will feature the themes resilience and relevance and include more than 32 sessions on topics such as preservation as a tool for advancing racial justice and equity. The pandemic and climate change. You can visit saving places.org slash conference for more details. And if your HBCU has an architecture or construction management program students at those programs are invited to attend passport with complimentary registration. This opportunity is made available by preservation and practice a program to encourage more African American architecture students to consider opportunities and historic preservation. For more details be sure to check the follow up email after this webinar or contact Milan Jordan our hope crew director by email which you can see there on the screen. Last month the National Trust launched the Brown versus Board of Education National Treasure Campaign and collaborated with champions in Congress on the introduction introduction of legislation recognizing the contributions of communities in Delaware, South Carolina, Washington DC and Virginia. We held a webinar where members of these communities gathered to share their story, and the recording is available on the forum webinar page at the link on the screen. You can also learn how to advocate for passage of the new legislation as saving places.org slash brown VBOE. And lastly, on next Tuesday, October 20, the National Trust Historic Site, the President Woodrow Wilson House will present today and yesterday, the racial implications of the Wilsonian Foreign Service. You can join Ambassador Joel Danies and Chris Richardson for a discussion moderated by Dr. Jonathan Warden on the racial implications of the Wilsonian Foreign Service and the experience of people of color serving in the US Foreign Service from 1913 to today. This event will be a special interest to anyone considering joining the Foreign Service or studying foreign relations, race relations or history, and especially relevant in the context of Wilson's negative impact on the civil rights we still struggle with today. A virtual talk is free and you can register by visiting Woodrow Wilson House.org. Again, thank you all. Thank you. Sorry, Tiffany, we have one more question coming in and this might be a good one for Brent to answer, but how do you anticipate the grant program going beyond this initiative? I'm going to turn that over to Brent to answer that, because I think he can answer that very well and better than I can. I would just say that our goal is to fund and partner with at least 30 HBCUs. So we are currently about to complete phase one of the action fund and close our $25 million campaign, having supported 150 black history sites and preservation projects across the country. And we look to scale up. And so over the next five years, we are defining an ambitious HBCU preservation strategy. And again, we're looking to scale up and partner with about 30 HBCUs and to create transformational change. So stay tuned. Thank you, Brent. So thank you all. One to all our speakers and thank you to everyone who attended today's webinar. Again, a special thank you to our program partners and funders, National Endowment for the Humanities Board Foundation, the JPV Foundation, and the Executive Leadership Council for their support of the HBCU Cultural Heritage Doership Initiative. If you have any questions, follow us as a webinar. Please don't hesitate to contact us at either HBCU at savingplaces.org, forum at savingplaces.org, or if you have questions about the grant process, grants at savingplaces.org. Thank you again and have a good day. Thank you.