OTM is excited to announce that the museum has received a $15,000 grant from Arizona Humanities! Funding for this grant was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP). The NEH received funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 in order to provide emergency relief to institutions and organizations working in the humanities that have been adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

OTM is owned and operated by the Winslow Historical Society, an independent nonprofit funded primarily by the City of Winslow and with additional funds from memberships, donations, and gift-shop sales. In 2020 and 2021, the museum’s five-month closure, combined with reduced visitor numbers once it reopened, decreased on-site donations and gift-shop sales.

Along with a reduction in City of Winslow funds, these losses negatively impacted the museum’s prudent reserve and threatened its ability to continue operations at the current level. OTM took advantage of this rare, one-time opportunity to apply for operating funds. The ARP Grant will go a long way toward righting the fiscal ship of a small, rural nonprofit history museum in these financially precarious times.

OTM is grateful to both the NEH, an independent federal agency created in 1965 that supports research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities; and Arizona Humanities, the nonprofit state affiliate of the NEH that does the same here in Arizona; for making ARP funding accessible to the Old Trails Museum and other small humanities institutions across the state.