Update, Apr. 3, 2025: NPR has reported, and the AHA executive director confirmed, receipt of a letter late last night that cancelled federal funding in its entirety, “effective immediately.”

The Alabama Humanities Alliance announced Wednesday it has suspended all grantmaking after the Trump administration’s government-efficiency office promised deep cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds 60% of the Alabama affiliate’s budget.

AHA is one of 56 state and territory councils of the NEH. AHA’s grants support educational and civic-engagement programming in communities across the state, with a significant portion of grants funding programs in the Birmingham metro area.

If the NEH’s budget is slashed, AHA is likely to lose all or most of the federal funding that sustains it, said Chuck Holmes, executive director of the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

“The potential gutting of a federal agency might feel far away from many of us here in Alabama,” Holmes said. “But what’s at stake is very much of local concern – hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for local nonprofits to serve people in towns and cities across Alabama.”

AHA-supported programs include local history projects, storytelling festivals, community cultural celebrations and humanities-focused podcasts and documentaries. Grant recipients include educational organizations, municipalities, chambers of commerce, museums, universities and libraries.

AHA reported that approximately 250,000 Alabamians participated in 1,790 events and public projects through its programming and that of its grant recipients in 2024. In an AHA survey that year, 90% of grant recipients stated their public programming would not have been possible without an AHA grant.

Earlier this week, NEH managers told staff members the Department of Government Efficiency had recommended staff reductions of up to 80% and cancellation of grants made under the Biden administration that have not been fully paid, the New York Times reported. NEH has approximately 180 employees.

Holmes said his contacts at NEH told him senior leaders are now tasked with coming up with a plan to achieve the cuts.

Through a 50-year-old arrangement, 40% of NEH’s congressionally appropriated budget is divided among the state/territory councils. AHA received $1.2 million in fiscal year 2024, Holmes said. The organization used the majority of those funds to pay staff, who support AHA’s own public programming, and it granted approximately $380,000 to nonprofits, he said.

Holmes said he doesn’t know for certain whether AHA’s federal funding will be cut or by how much. He said the move to suspend grantmaking is a cautionary – and, he hopes, temporary – step the organization is taking to ensure it can continue paying its seven employees and other essential expenses.

AHA is also halting bookings through its Road Scholars Speakers Bureau, which provides scholars and storytellers who give presentations at libraries, historical societies and senior citizen centers.

If all funding from NEH were to cease, Holmes said the future of the Alabama Humanities Alliance would be in serious jeopardy.

“Alabama, and Birmingham in particular, are very charitable and generous places with a lot of givers, but there are also a lot of other nonprofits out there trying to raise money,” Holmes said. “If we fully lose our federal funding, we’re going to be either wholly reinventing or downsizing what this organization is or we’ll be closing.”

Holmes said AHA should receive money allocated to it through the budget resolution Congress passed last month. But he’s concerned that if NEH’s staff is severely cut, the funding system that allows AHA to draw the money budgeted for it will cease working because there won’t be enough people to operate it.

Holmes said he drew funding from the system on Tuesday without a problem.

“Will it work next week? We just don’t know how robust the agency will be,” he said.

BirminghamWatch is among the nonprofits that have received funding from the Alabama Humanities Alliance.