Funding Limits and Categories
Up to $300,000
- Cataloguing & Digitalization
- Conservation of Objects
- Collections Care
Up to $100,000
- Exhibitions
- Education
Up to $50,000
- Public Programs
- Publications
- Events and Community Activities
Full Match up to $500,000 from all applicants:
- Structural Stabilization and Restoration
- Adaptive Reuse
The Structural Stabilization & Restoration and Adaptive Reuse grants require:
- The applicant has raised all funds needed at the time of the application deadline. No promised or projected funding are considered.
- The applicants must apply to the RDLGF partners prior to applying to RDLGF in order to have their project properly assessed: New York Preservation League and the NY Landmarks Conservancy: Sacred Sites for house of worship.
- All permits and written bids must be in place at the time of the application submission
In-Kind
RDLGF permits all institutions an in-kind percentage as a portion of their Match.
- No more than 20% of the Matching funds may be in-kind (e.g. if you are requesting $20,000 and matching $20,000 your in-kind limit would be $4000) Examples of in-kind matches include volunteer hours, donated materials and donated professional services. Institutional staff hours do not qualify for in-kind.
- In-kind matching is dedicated to the project proposed and not for overall operations of the organization to any other project (e.g. general volunteer hours in office administration for the organization, fundraising, etc. could not count toward the match)
- All construction and renovation grant recipients must allocate a percentage, approximately $1500 of their own funds, for periodic inspections.
These quality control reports will include:
- a site visit before the project,
- a written report to the Foundation on the work while is it is being done,
- final report on the completion of the project.
2026 Grant Cycles
Spring Grant Cycle
Deadline
Applications Deadline:
March 6, 2026 by 5pm
Spring 2026
Funding Decision By:
May 15, 2026
Spring 2026
Notifications
May 31, 2026
Fall Grant Cycle
Deadline
Applications Deadline:
August 7, 2026 by 5pm
Fall 2026
Funding Decision By:
November 6, 2026
Fall 2026
Notifications:
November 26, 2026
Application Guidelines
Requests for the following will not be awarded:
- Tuition remission for student employees.
- Salaries/wages and applicable fringe benefits for current, permanent staff who will work on the project. This program is not intended to provide salary relief for existing staff at institutions. We do not fund existing staff salaries.
- Property purchase
- Lobbying
- Fund-raising
- Indirect costs (overhead)
- Research
- Expenses incurred prior to award date
- Insurance costs
- Debt or interest