The Ohio History Connection’s History Fund Grants Support History in Ohio! Please Donate.

The Ohio History Connection’s History Fund grant program is one of the few grant programs in the state just for history projects, including the care of and access to archival material. The Ohio History Fund needs your help to make more grants. If you receive a refund on your Ohio income taxes, consider donating a portion of it to the “Ohio History Fund” tax “check-off,” line 26f on your state tax return.

Since the Ohio History Connection established it in 2012, the Ohio History Fund has made grants for 16 archives, library, and digitization projects, totaling more than $166,000. These include the digitization of oral histories about WWII at BGSU’s Center for Archival Collections (2018), the digitization of historic Butler County atlases held by the MidPointe Library (2013), and, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Archives, the processing of the papers of Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Jane Scott, who covered the rock music beat from 1952-2002 (2015).

Click here for a list of all grant recipients.

Your donation and those of your friends, relatives, and thousands of other history lovers makes possible grants for local history projects throughout Ohio. Since the Ohio History Fund started in 2012, it has made 81 grants in 40 counties for a total of $780,469 (as of January 2019). Proving that there is a great need for the History Fund, it has received 388 grant applications from 66 counties, totaling almost $4.7 million in requests!

The more the Ohio History Fund tax check-off gets, the more the Ohio History Fund grant program gives.

Not receiving a tax refund? You can still help: buy an Ohio History mastodon license plate. Twenty dollars from the sale of each set of plates benefits the Ohio History Fund grant program.

Applications for next year’s History Fund grants will posted in June. The deadline for proposals fall in late August–early September, as in year’s past. For more on application availability and grant deadlines, see “How does my organization apply for an Ohio History Fund grant?” by clicking here.

Last Updated on May 18, 2021 by janet_carleton