U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation Grants Program (Jamaica)

The projects recommended for funding advance U.S. foreign policy goals and show respect for other cultures. Cultural preservation is effective public diplomacy that resonates deeply with opinion leaders and local communities, even in countries where ties may be otherwise limited.

Funding Areas

• The AFCP Grants Program supports the preservation of archaeological sites, historic buildings and monuments, museum collections, and forms of traditional cultural expression, such as indigenous languages and crafts. Appropriate project activities may include:
  • Anastylosis (reassembling a site from its original parts)
  • Conservation (addressing damage or deterioration to an object or site)
  • Consolidation (connecting or reconnecting elements of an object or site)
  • Documentation (recording in analog or digital format the condition and salient features of an object, site, or tradition)
  • Inventory (listing of objects, sites, or traditions by location, feature, age, or other unifying characteristic or state)
  • Preventive Conservation (addressing conditions that threaten or damage a site, object, collection, or tradition)
  • Restoration (replacing missing elements to recreate the original appearance of an object or site, usually appropriate only with fine arts, decorative arts, and historic buildings)
  • Stabilization (reducing the physical disturbance of an object or site)

Funding Information

• Award will range from $10,000 to $500,000.

Funding Priorities

• Some of the most successful AFCP projects have been designed as part of a greater Public Diplomacy programming arc promoting specific U.S. policy goals and host-country or community goals. Accordingly, in FY 2024, preference will be given to projects that do one or more of the following:
  • Directly support U.S. treaty or bilateral agreement obligations.
  • Directly support U.S. policies, strategies and objectives in a country as stated in the National Security Strategy, Integrated Country Strategy, or other U.S. government planning documents.
  • Support disaster risk reduction for cultural heritage in disaster-prone or politically and economically unstable areas or post-disaster cultural heritage recovery.
  • Complement other ECA or public diplomacy programs.

Criteria

• AFCP does not support the following activities or costs, and the Center will deem applications requesting AFCP support for any of these activities or costs ineligible:
  • Preservation or purchase of privately or commercially owned cultural objects, collections, or real property, including those whose transfer from private or commercial to public ownership is envisioned, planned, or in process but not complete at the time of application.
  • Preservation of natural heritage (physical, biological, and geological formations, paleontological collections, habitats of threatened species of animals and plants, fossils, etc.) unless the natural heritage has a cultural heritage connection or dimension.
  • Preservation of hominid or human remains.
  • Preservation of news media (newspapers, newsreels, radio and TV programs, etc.).
  • Preservation of published materials available elsewhere (books, periodicals, etc.).
  • Development of curricula or educational materials for classroom use.
  • Archaeological excavations or exploratory surveys for research purposes.
  • Historical research, except in cases where the research is justifiable and integral to the success of the proposed project.

For more information, visit U.S. Embassy in Jamaica.