Cultural institutions all over Alaska are scrambling to figure out what a wave of cuts to federal grants means for their programs and staffing.
Over the past few weeks, museums, libraries and cultural organizations across Alaska have received notice that federal funds are being terminated. The federal government is making the cuts to align spending with a recent Trump administration order and the Department of Government Efficiency’s goals.
Wrangell’s Irene Ingle Public Library has for at least the past 10 years received an annual federal grant of between $6,000 and $10,000, distributed through the Native American Basic Grants program at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS.
The money comes to the library through the Wrangell Cooperative Association and is used for equipment, books and programs for the public.
The library already has received its $10,000 for the current federal fiscal year and has applied through the WCA for two grants, including a much larger grant, for the next fiscal year. Library Director Sarah Scambler said she is waiting — nervously but hopefully — that the federal government will continue to fund IMLS grants.
None of the operating budget for the Wrangell Museum at the Nolan Center is dependent on federal money, but last year it received an $8,000 federal grant for an assessment of its collection and storage, said Jeanie Arnold, director of the Nolan Center.
Across Alaska, libraries and museums that already have spent their expected federal grants but have not yet received reimbursement are struggling to figure out if they will be paid.
“It’s really devastating for our field,” said Dixie Clough, who directs Museums Alaska, an organization that helps support museums and cultural centers around the state.
On March 14, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which outlined seven government organizations the administration intends to shrink. Among the entities was IMLS, which last year distributed $267 million to libraries and museums around the country.
According to reporting from National Public Radio, the institute’s entire staff was placed on administrative leave after a meeting between the organization’s leaders and employees from DOGE.
Of the approximately $1.2 million in IMLS funding slated to reach Alaska this year, roughly $900,000 of it is now blocked, according to Rachel Nash, president of the Alaska Library Association and the city librarian in Soldotna.
The majority of the grants are for $10,000 or less in Native American Basic Grants given to villages and tribes in order to sustain library and lending services.
For many of the small libraries in rural Alaska, the annual grants are a lifeline.
“It is almost our entire budget. … The loss of this grant will be devastating for us,” wrote Theresa Quiner, the library director for the public library in Bethel.
The other funding source that’s been thrown into disarray is the National Endowment for the Humanities, where a team from DOGE placed 80% of the employees on leave and sent notice to its state-level partners that “all awarded grants … were canceled in their entirety, effective April 1,” according to the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
That means the Alaska Humanities Forum will likely have to shut down.
“In the long term, it would mean the eventual closure of our organization. We have some reserve funding we’re going to have to tap into now, and we’re engaging in an aggressive fundraising campaign to try to make up this gap,” Alaska Humanities Forum President Kameron Perez-Verdia said.
The forum receives about a million dollars from the national program and matches that money with local dollars. That pays for a number of programs across Alaska, from leadership development and mental health support for young people, to money for filmmakers and helping oversee the Governor’s Arts and Humanities Awards each year.
Larger cultural institutions have more ways to absorb the lost funds, but the cuts are still an unwelcome development.
“This was totally unexpected,” said Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau.
SHI lost two grants worth about $300,000 total for studies in how Indigenous peoples in Southeast Alaska have harvested, preserved and consumed black seaweed, herring and herring eggs.
“They are vital for our food security, but they also play an important role in our ceremonial and cultural activities,” Worl said.
Larry Persily with the Wrangell Sentinel contributed reporting for this story.
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