Please write your Members of Congress and ask them to support the National Historical Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC), the “grant-making” arm of the National Archives & Records Administration. Letters are needed to urge Congress to provide fiscal year 2012 funding of $10 million for the NHPRC’s regular grants programs.

The NHPRC was funded at $13 million in FY ‘10, which included $8.5 million for regular grants and $4.5 million for a one-time initiative to digitize both the published volumes and unpublished papers of the nation’s Founding Fathers. The final FY ‘11 year-end Continuing Resolution (CR) provides $7 million in funding for the NHPRC (a 46% cut). The Obama Administration proposed FY ‘12 funding for the NHPRC of only $5 million.

Our partners at the National Humanities Alliance have set up a template message for you to customize, including sample bullet points. We strongly encourage you to personalize this message, telling Congress why the NHPRC and its grants program are important to you, your institution, your field, state, or district. If you have received or worked on an NHPRC grant, please consider the local or long-term impact of this funding. If possible, cite numbers where appropriate and specify what would be lost without this funding.