Program Links
Use this step-by-step guide to the Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices Initial Application.
Access the Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices application form during an open call for applications.
This program is for nonprofit academic, independent, and community-based organizations in the US and Canada that collect, preserve, and share rare and unique materials with the general public. Eligible organizations must propose eligible projects falling within the program’s scope and be prepared to abide by the program’s award terms.
Applicant organizations and any collaborating organizations must fall under one of the following categories and meet the requirements for that category:
Two or more eligible organizations may apply to collaborate on a project. When two or more organizations collaborate, one must be appointed as the lead applicant, accepting responsibility for project oversight and the management of grant funds.
This program supports the digitization of rare and unique historical and cultural materials in various formats and the creation and promotion of online access to those materials. Any expenditures of program funds must be directly related to these purposes.
Materials nominated for digitization through this program must be owned and held by an eligible organization prepared to abide by the program’s award terms.
How do I know if my project fits within the program’s scope?
Your project fits within the scope of this program if
If you’ve confirmed all of the above statements, you may be a good fit for this program. Any additional questions about eligibility or project design can be directed to hiddencollections@clir.org.
To receive funding through this program, all grant recipients must adhere to the following terms regarding funding amounts and project lengths. They must also agree to additional stipulations related to intellectual property and reuse.
Eligible organizations may request between USD$50,000 and USD$300,000. The currency of award funds will be issued as USD or CAD depending on the lead applicant organization.
All requests must align with the Allowable Costs as described in the application instructions.
The Initial Application stage is open to all eligible organizations and consists of a series of writing prompts.
The Final Application stage will be open to organizations chosen from the Initial Application pool. Applicants will receive anonymous reviewer feedback from the program’s independent review panel and have the opportunity to participate in other information-sharing activities focused on building a Final Application. Information collected in the Initial Application stage will help to build the Final Application.
The below Applicant Webinars and Applicant Support Series were created for the 2024-25 application cycle. Much of the content is relevant for the current application cycle, but some things will change.
The initial application period is open from August 5 – October 20, 2025.
The Guidelines serves as a step-by-step guide and a collaborative workspace for preparing an initial application for the Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices program. The document walks applicants through each question, describes what should be covered in each response, and offers space to draft responses.
Still need help? Contact CLIR’s Grants Team at hiddencollections@clir.org. During open application periods, CLIR staff are available and ready to help via email.
This program’s focus is the creation of digital representations of unique content that will deepen public understanding of the histories of people of color and other communities and populations whose work, experiences, and perspectives have been insufficiently recognized or unattended in the past. CLIR is committed to projects that contribute to the public good, using methods that are thoughtfully designed, sustainable, and prioritize community-centered access.
Through its support of digitization, this program will enhance the global digital research environment in ways that support new of discoveries and learning. It will help to ensure that resources held by collecting organizations become thoughtfully integrated online, to contributing to a more complete understanding of human history. Approaches to digitization should be coordinated across organizations and in consultation with stakeholder communities. By encouraging authentic partnerships and communication, CLIR expects to help improve understanding of the challenges and opportunities of digitization among all people who manage and use special collections and archives.
For this program, special collections are any kind of rare or unique materials housed in secure, monitored environments and made available to the general public. Archives are unique, often unpublished, materials associated with a specific individual, topic, location, or organization of historical and/or cultural interest. Materials eligible for digitization may be of any format as long as they are owned and held by an eligible organization. The materials must have been created by or describe peoples of color and/or other communities and populations whose work, experiences, and perspectives have been insufficiently recognized or attended in the past.
For the purposes of this program, applicants must convincingly argue that their materials are “hidden” in the sense that they cannot have a meaningful impact on the public’s understanding of people, communities, and populations whose work, experiences, and perspectives have been insufficiently recognized or attended in the past until those materials are digitized, discoverable, and made accessible. Full online access is desirable in a general sense, but may not always be possible; instead, applicants are expected to envision modes of access that are ethical, legal, and respectful of the norms of source communities.
CLIR accepts applications to digitize collections that have been fully or partially described as well as those for which no descriptive records exist. Most digitization projects require the production of original descriptive metadata, even if these collections have already been described in a finding aid or in a catalog. Such descriptive metadata would be in addition to the technical and administrative metadata required to manage the digital files created through the project.
See also: So what do we mean by “hidden”?, Re:Thinking (Blog post, February 12, 2015)
The “core values” for Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices re statements that affirm the program’s broad objectives. These statements are provided to guide applicants in developing their projects, and to guide reviewers in assessing applicants’ proposals. CLIR’s review panel advises program staff in reassessing the program’s priorities and the relevance of the core values to these priorities on a regular basis, making adjustments as needed.
The five core values are: public knowledge, broad representation, authentic partnerships, sustainable infrastructures, and community-centered access. Definitions of the program’s core values can be found on the program’s homepage.
CLIR’s program seeks to serve the “public good” in two senses: first, to emphasize that access to cultural and historical knowledge by the general public is necessary for the healthy functioning of any democratic society; and, second, to recognize that a coordinated and collaborative approach to managing that knowledge as a shared resource is the fairest and most effective strategy for preserving it for future generations. Global networks and platforms afford many opportunities to create broad access to knowledge and to collaborate on decisions about how that access is created and maintained, but only when collecting organizations prioritize the broader public good will it become possible to cultivate a learning environment that is equally representative of and beneficial to all.
CLIR’s program supports digitization projects that thoughtfully capture and share the untapped stories of people, communities, and populations who are underrepresented in digital collections in ways that contribute to a more complete understanding of human history. This program’s theme and core values focus on often “hidden” histories that include, but are not necessarily limited to, those of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other People of Color; Women; Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Non-binary, and other Genderqueer people and communities; Immigrants; Displaced populations; Blind, Deaf, and Disabled people and communities; and Colonized, Disenfranchised, Enslaved, and Incarcerated people. This value is inclusive in nature rather than exclusive, and applications are welcomed that can make a compelling case for the collection(s) nominated for digitization. The use of “voices” and “stories” does not limit collections to narrative or oral histories. The diversification of the historical record requires the incorporation of all kinds of artifacts, objects, and media.
Authentic partnerships foreground meaningful engagement with the communities and organizations whose stories the source materials tell. Authentic partners intentionally build inclusive teams across organizational and geographic boundaries. Each partner’s needs and goals should be acknowledged in the project planning stages, and the partners should design the project together. Throughout the process, each partner should be clear on expectations and deliverables and have a voice in any decisions about fulfilling them.
When feasible, applicant organizations are encouraged to partner with community organizations or groups represented in collections. Community members should have avenues to give feedback on the project and collection stewards should commit to soliciting and integrating that feedback into their approach in a way that honors community members’ lived experiences, especially in cases where stewarding organizations are led and staffed by individuals who are not members of the represented communities themselves.
Building authentic partnerships takes thoughtfulness and time. If you are seeking a collaborator to work with you formally on a Digitizing Hidden Collections project, we recommend reaching out to your known network of organizations, especially targeting organizations that may have expertise or resources that complement your own. Listservs, message boards, and social media may offer ways to make connections or gather potential contacts within an organization that may be unfamiliar to you.
Digitization is only the first step when considering expanding access to materials; organizations should be prepared to keep and preserve the digital resources over time. The DLF Digitizing Special Formats wiki provides a number of resources to consider when planning for a digitization project. Exploring the standards established by professional associations and national agencies, such as Digital Preservation at the Library of Congress, could also help you consider important questions in the planning stages of your project. Consider the viability of providing access through digital collection aggregators, such as the Digital Public Library of America, or other platforms outside your own organization and implementing technical and description standards that will help your collection live within the increasingly interconnected digital landscape of digital collections.
Rather than exclusively valuing broad open access, this program emphasizes approaches to access, description, and outreach that make digitized content as widely available and useful as possible within legal and ethical constraints. When appropriate, applicants should consider differentiated access, empowering communities and peoples represented in collections to filter access through appropriate lenses as defined by their own traditions and cultural values. While the program does require that metadata created during the course of project work be dedicated to the public domain, ethical exceptions to limit external metadata are permitted.
Yes, eligible organizations in the US territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands may apply, and eligible organizations in the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut may also apply.
No, applicants may propose the digitization of source materials protected by copyright or other laws, so long as the applicant institution and all partner institutions are prepared to execute and abide by CLIR’s grant agreement for this program (sample Agreements are available on the program website). CLIR encourages using standardized rights statements like those provided by RightsStatements.org to communicate to the public the copyright status of content digitized through the program, as well as information about its potential re-use. In addition, the intellectual property agreement does require that all metadata created through this program be explicitly dedicated to the public domain. Links to resources related to copyright and intellectual property may be found on the Digitizing Special Formats wiki.
If your organization does not meet the program’s eligibility requirements because it does not have an IRS designation or is not a governmental or tribal unit (whose purpose and normal function is collecting, preserving, and sharing rare and unique materials with the general public), your organization is not eligible to apply under a fiscal sponsor. A fiscal sponsor may be added as a collaborator, but every organization has to meet the eligibility requirements, whether they are the lead applicant or a collaborator.
The focus of this program is making copies from existing physical collections, not the creation of new collections, original research, or intellectual works. Therefore, activities such as collecting new oral histories would be outside the scope of this grant. Digitizing already existing oral histories on physical media (such as magnetic tape) would be allowable, so long as the recordings are not born-digital.
Collaborators can take many forms. One collaborative project might seek to bring together large quantities of related material held by multiple organizations; another might enable a larger institution to share its technical expertise and infrastructure with a smaller organization that possesses important content they would not be able to digitize, preserve, and share widely without assistance. Other collaborations might pair collections stewards, community organizations, and technical experts whose complementary expertise strengthens an effort to complete a project, conduct effective outreach, promote meaningful use, and safeguard project deliverables for the long term. CLIR’s review panel looks for evidence of authentic partnerships–one of the program’s core values– so when a partnership or collaboration aligns well with the needs of a project and with the priorities of partner organizations, this can certainly strengthen the case for funding. At the same time, establishing a formal collaboration is not a requirement for applicants, and many single-organization projects are funded each cycle.
Yes, CLIR encourages applications from consortia, or partnerships of two or more collaborating organizations, including US – Canadian partnerships. The submitted budget should aggregate the total funds requested; all funds will be disbursed to the lead applicant organization. CLIR will not disburse funds for one award to several organizations
All divisions of funds and responsibilities should be addressed in the application. Applicants submitting a joint or consortial project must also include a combined, detailed list of collections to be digitized.
Applicants should seek authentic partnerships that advance the missions and meet the priorities of all partner organizations. The partnership should also enhance the capacity of each organization to sustainably create and disseminate digitized collections and archives as a public good. To make a strong case for funding, partners should identify benefits of the project that would not be possible if the partners worked individually.
The decision to require initial applications prior to accepting final applications was made in response to feedback from CLIR’s applicants and reviewers. The purpose of the initial application is to give reviewers a way to assist applicants in improving the quality of their proposals. Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices uses a shorter initial application format than previous iterations of the program to encourage applications from as diverse a pool of organizations as possible.
Organizations may submit more than one proposal, but each proposal must have a unique principal investigator. An individual may not act as a principal investigator on more than one Digitizing Hidden Collections project at any time, and may not be named as a principal investigator on more than one Digitizing Hidden Collections proposal during a single cycle.
While reviewers consider all proposals separately on their own merits, applicants from organizations submitting multiple proposals should consult with one another as they craft their applications and demonstrate an awareness of other planned projects in their proposal narratives, where relevant.
No, the final application stage is only open to organizations who are selected from the initial application stage.
No, unfortunately CLIR’s grants team only has the capacity to support applicants who will be invited to advance in the competition. However, each year CLIR endeavors to secure funding to continue offering the program in future years, so applicants who are initially unsuccessful may have opportunities to resubmit at a later date.
No, all applications may only include a maximum of three named Principal Investigators.
Yes, all sections are required unless otherwise indicated. Incomplete applications will not be eligible for review.
CLIR’s online application system will accept documents that exceed stated page limits. When CLIR’s team conducts its technical review of all submissions, those including documents that exceed page limits will be flagged for revision, truncation, or removal from the pool. CLIR’s capacity to solicit and re-upload revised documents will be determined by the number of submissions in the pool, so applicants are strongly encouraged to review the Application Guidelines before, during, and just prior to submission to ensure their work is compliant. Applicants are strongly encouraged to confirm compliance after uploading files to the online application space to verify that the correct version of all required documents are included.
Applicants should give their best possible estimate of costs. The budget narrative and detail documents are important factors as the reviewers decide which applications will advance, and which applicants will ultimately be funded. Reviewers rely on the inclusion of evidence supporting budget figures for their assessment. Reviewers may recommend adjustments to budget figures between the initial and final application stages.
If working with outside digitization vendors, formal quotes for the project work are not be required until the final application round, at which point quotes for all services costing in excess of $5,000 are required. In the initial round, applicants should still provide an informed estimate of the cost of outsourced work; applicants are encouraged to reach out to potential vendors for a preliminary price point.
A limited amount of information submitted will become public. All such information has been designated in the Application Guidelines and within the online application system. Only information from complete, submitted applications will be shared. CLIR will not publicize information from in-progress applications not submitted by the applicant.
No, applicants are free to choose standards or technologies they believe will best suit their project and their users’ needs, and should justify their choices in the application.
Applicants may find information from the Digitizing Special Formats wiki, curated by the Digital Library Federation, helpful in planning project proposals.
The Application Overview in the Introduction to the program’s Application Guidelines includes lists of the requirements for both the initial and final proposals.