UPDATE: Donors step up to fund history program through Oct. after federal grant was pulled
April 15, 2025 | By Lisa ScagliottiLess than a week after hearing that a key federal grant was being withdrawn and essentially ending a new Vermont Historical Society program, leaders of the nonprofit announced on Tuesday that donors have stepped in to fill the gap, at least through October.
In a letter to members posted on the society’s website on Tuesday, Executive Director Steve Perkins and board President Jan Albers shared the news that the Activating 21st Century Local History program is no longer ending before it barely got started as originally thought.
The organization last Wednesday received a termination letter from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services that said the program “no longer serves the interests of the United States,” so the grant of $175,000 was being withdrawn.
“That language was unnecessarily cold, but also inaccurate,” Perkins and Albers wrote. “We believe that preserving and accessing history in our local communities is very much in the interests of our nation.”
Since then, “we learned that we are not the only ones who feel that way. Generous donors stepped forward to underwrite the program through October, allowing VHS to complete the first year of this work,” they wrote.
Multiple donors, they said, have kicked in to fund the program through October, which essentially means keeping a newly hired Program Coordinator Hannah Kirkpatrick, whose role was to work closely with representatives at historical societies in Waterbury, Brookfield, Sharon and Thetford, as well as the public library in Vergennes. The project is to assist the local organizations with their efforts to organize and modernize their systems to catalog their collections and make them accessible to the public.
“We are delighted that we can see through the first year of this two-year project, which will allow us to complete the pilot cohort and set up systems for sustaining some of this work in future years. The outpouring of support from our community means that we will not be wasting the federal funding that already went into establishing the Activating 21st Century Local History program.”
Waterbury Historical Society President Cheryl Casey said she was thrilled with the news that the training program would happen after all, but she wasn’t surprised. “We are deeply grateful for all of the support people have shown in the wake of the grant termination announcement, but we’re also not really surprised,” Casey said. “Vermonters have a long history of showing up for each other and this instance is another piece to add to that story. We will preserve the moment for future Vermonters to learn from and be inspired by. This is the perfect example of why history is so important.”
Historical society spokesman Andrew Liptak said he did not have a specific figure for the fundraising total over recent days other than that it would be enough to support the position through October. The Tuesday public message thanked the multiple donors, including Marilyn Blackwell and George Burrill, members and donors who decided to step up with financial support specifically for this project, they said.
“This is a reprieve, for which we are grateful,” Perkins and Albers said, noting concern that the project may not extend to work with a second group of local historical societies as planned.
Read their full message of the funding reprieve here.
Original post is below
Federal grant cut will thwart historical society’s efforts to organize, modernize its collection
April 12, 2025Cuts to the small federal agency that supports public libraries and museums across the country will impact efforts in Vermont to preserve local history, including a program that involved the Waterbury Historical Society.
The Vermont Historical Society on Thursday announced that due to the termination of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, it would lay off a staff member and stop work on a new local history project.
“My heart and my spirits plummeted” at the news, said Cheryl Casey, president of the Waterbury Historical Society. Casey wrote about the impact of the grant loss in a blog post for the historical society that she shared with Waterbury Roundabout.
The Waterbury Historical Society was in the first group of local historical societies that the state organization was to work with through the grant to focus on improving its efforts to modernize and organize its collection to be easily available for public use. The assistance through the federal grant was welcome, Casey noted, by the local historical societies that don’t have paid staff to tackle these projects.
“We all have been developing mission-critical projects for which we were going to receive dedicated, onsite support from the state historical society staff between May and October and a stipend to cover necessary materials,” Casey explains.
The cuts come as the Institute of Museum and Library Services was added to the list of federal agencies where funding is being dramatically slashed by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funds to libraries in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It serves 35,000 museums and 123,000 libraries across the country, according to its website. In 2024, it awarded $266.7 million in grants, research and policy development to support the nation’s museums, libraries, and related organizations. Its entire staff of just approximately 70 people has now been put on administrative leave.
The state historical society on Thursday announced that a letter from the federal institute delivered the news that funding for its Activating 21st Century Local History Training Program was terminated, effective April 8.
Acting IMLS director Keith Sonderling wrote to the Vermont organization saying, “IMLS has determined that your grant is unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and the IMLS Program.”
In announcing the news, Vermont Historical Society spokesman Andrew Liptak explained that the move was expected after President Donald Trump on March 14 issued an executive order titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy” which called for the immediate defunding of seven governmental entities, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The Activating 21st Century Local History Training Program was designed to assist multiple Vermont local historical societies, which largely rely on volunteers, to develop skills for organizing and managing their collections to help communities continue to preserve local history.
The program, which started last summer and was to run through 2027, included creating an Online Resource Center and conducting workshops, beginning with the Bixby Memorial Library in Vergennes and historical societies in Waterbury, Brookfield, Sharon and Thetford. A second cohort was to be chosen during the project period as well. The local organizations were to receive training and assistance with specific ongoing projects, Liptak said.
Ending the $175,000 grant now leaves the program short $140,000, which will mean laying off the Vermont Historical Society staffer hired for the program and ending the outreach the society intended to do with the local organizations in the project.
“We can no longer pay the salary of an employee who would have been spending that money in the community, and it’ll mean that those historical societies that were part of the first cohort – and the future ones – won’t get that training and skillset,” Liptak said. “We all lose out because of that.”
Liptak also noted an unfortunate aspect of the timing of the funding cut. “Tragically, this move deprives Vermont’s local historical societies of the resources and programming designed to support their operations as the nation prepares for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country,” the announcement notes.
That’s just one example of the role local historical societies play. Casey notes that the information and artifacts amassed by these community organizations serve many purposes. “These organizations preserve and protect a community’s story, lovingly curating the greatest successes, most disappointing failures, and everything in between that has brought the community to its present chapter,” she writes. “Through exhibits of artifacts, documents, and photographs, local museums provide touchpoints to a community’s past and inspire champions of the community’s future.”
Despite the loss of the federal grant, Liptak said the nonprofit Vermont Historical Society remains dedicated to preserving and sharing Vermont history through its collections, exhibits, programs, etc. and it will continue to be a resource for Vermont educators local historical societies and museums.
Likewise, Casey said the Waterbury Historical Society’s efforts to improve the organization and access to its collection remain a top priority.
“It might take us longer than expected, and we might experience hurdles that could have been avoided, but we will see the project through because our volunteer squad, although currently small, is mighty,” she said. “Additionally, the Vermont Historical Society has committed to finding ways to support us and the other members of the program cohort through periodic consultation. I cannot thank them enough for all they are doing.”