The Alaska Humanities Forum faces a massive cut to its budget after the Trump administration’s slashing of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The more-than-50-year-old organization uses federal money, combined with matching dollars from local grants and donations, to fund programs around the state aimed at bringing communities together.
Kameron Perez-Verdia is president and CEO of the Alaska Humanities Forum.
“Youth programs that are happening around the state,” Perez-Verdia said. “It's programs that are doing language preservation. It's grants that are doing historical projects.”
The forum received a letter April 2 from the National Endowment for the Humanities that its federal grant -- totalling about $900,000 -- was terminated, effective April 1.
Alaska isn’t alone. Last week, humanities programs in all 50 states that rely on the national endowment received notice that the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency aims to cancel roughly $175 million in grant funding that had not yet been disbursed.
The short notice is troubling, Perez-Verdia said, and his organization is exploring legal options to get its funding restored.
“We believe that this is an illegal action,” he said. “It's funding that was already granted. Our organization, and all of these councils, are in charter. So these are in our U.S. law that our organization exists and gets funded.”
If the funding isn’t restored, it would be very difficult to raise local funds to make up the loss, Perez-Verdia said.
“To be able to raise this kind of money is going to be really challenging,” he said. “We as an organization would have to restructure significantly, and we would lose a lot.”
Representatives from the offices of Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Congressman Nick Begich did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, Perez-Verdia said the state’s congressional delegation has expressed support for the Alaska Humanities Forum.
““We believe we will ultimately win this fight. We have strong support from Alaska’s congressional delegation and from national partners,” Perez-Verdia said. “But it’s going to take time.”
