Heritage Professional Development Stipend
Do you want to participate in a conference, workshop series, or skill-building sessions to gain information, skills, inspiration, practices, or approaches for your professional development and learning? These funds can help you participate, make connections, and learn new skills for your career path in the heritage field.
Steps to Apply
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What Heritage Professional Development Stipend Funds
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What Heritage Professional Development Stipend Funds
The Heritage Professional Development Stipend program provides stipends ranging from $100 to $2,000 for heritage practitioners in King County to participate in a professional development or career maintenance opportunity. This stipend can be used by individuals seeking to build skills needed to thrive in the heritage field. These professional development opportunities must address a field-wide need.
Criteria
We fund all of our grants through a competitive process, carefully evaluating each application.
For this grant, we’ll look to see how well your project shows the following:
- Heritage contribution: whether you contribute to public experiences with heritage in King County, or have a clear intention to do so. This is demonstrated by a description of your role in the heritage field and your current and/or future contributions, such as advancing the mission of a heritage organization, creation of heritage resources, or public events focused on heritage.
- Significance: how the opportunity and skills/knowledge learned are significant and immediately useful, how the opportunity contributes to your career growth or maintenance, or alignment with your institution’s needs or goals. This is demonstrated by detailed and specific explanation of your goals and confirmed presence of relevant contents at the opportunity.
- Field need: how the opportunity is relevant to an established need in the heritage field (as demonstrated in Heritage Report or other cited sources) or a need created by COVID-19. This is demonstrated by detailed and specific explanation of the field-wide need and confirmed presence of relevant contents at the opportunity,
- Funding: whether you have access to additional financial support for this professional development opportunity. This program gives additional consideration to applicants without financial support from their employer for this professional development opportunity.
You can use this grant to:
- Pay for the cost of registration and travel to participate in a professional development or learning opportunity related to career maintenance and growth in the heritage field. These opportunities can take many forms including, but not limited to, conferences, workshops, technical assistance programs, training opportunities, demonstrations, and healing opportunities especially for heritage practitioners engaged with social justice work within the field.
- Purchase materials and consumable supplies for your presentation, if you are a presenter at the professional development opportunity to which you are attending.
This grant may not be used for:
- Reimbursement for the expenses incurred before the award notification.
- Meals and incidentals during your travel.
- Professional consultants and heritage specialists to provide a professional development for organization staff, board, and volunteers.
- Production of interpretive or creative projects. This would include exhibits, public programs, Pre K-12 educational programming, musical and/or theatrical performances.
- Equipment, materials and bookpurchases
- Construction or fabrication projects.
- General operating support, including staff salary, legal or finance services.
- Supplementing salary or wages lost due to travel.
- Services or events in which fundraising is the primary purpose.
Public Benefit: Why It Matters
Every time a visitor to Washington State stays in a hotel, they pay a Lodging Tax—this is where our funding comes from, and our mission is to put it back into the community. In this program, the growth of heritage practitioners is a public benefit, since the King County heritage field will benefit from the work done by informed heritage professionals. In your application, tell us exactly how the opportunity addresses a fieldwide need and you will use the information and skills learned so that your fellow King County residents will be able to enjoy and learn from your professional growth. Read about public benefit more in depth here.
Here are some ways you can provide public benefit:
- Give a presentation on heritage in King County or a specialized skill at a conference to raise visibility of King County heritage.
- Share your learnings with other heritage practitioners in King County.
- Learn a new approach to document and preserve material culture in King County from a workshop.
- Gain new skills to address a challenge within the heritage field or a need due to COVID-19.
Equity Investments
In order to combat inequities in our grantmaking, 4Culture is introducing Equity Investments. This practice will incorporate indicators of structural inequity into our panel process, including geographic location, income, operating budget, audiences served, and project focus. By prioritizing these factors, we intend to more equitably distribute funds to communities that have historically been excluded from cultural funding.
Each of our grant programs will implement an Equity Investment system tailored to the specific needs of its applicants; please read the After You Submit section of this page for details on how Equity Investments will function for this grant. This organization-wide change—and what we learn about its impact—is an important step towards more equitable funding at 4Culture and throughout the King County cultural sector.
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Are You Eligible?
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Are You Eligible?
Please read this section carefully for eligibility information. Please contact 4Culture Heritage staff if you have questions regarding your eligibility. Before you start an application, 4Culture Heritage staff will confirm your eligibility in the initial conversation with you.
You
- Applicants must be a full-time King County resident over 18 years old.
- Applicants must be able to demonstrate that they contribute to public experiences with heritage in King County. This includes, but not limited to, work as a current staff member, board member, or volunteer of a heritage organization in King County, actively working on a heritage-focused project meant for public enjoyment, or working toward such projects.
- Heritage is the exchange of knowledge and experiences shaped by our past. Heritage can manifest as: local history, ethnic history, Native traditional cultures, folklore, and historical and archaeological resources in King County. “Heritage organization” is defined as nonprofit organizations, museums, archives, public agencies, and community associations that are located and operating within King County and whose mission is to manage collections, and/or present exhibits and programs with a focus on heritage in King County to the residents of King County.
- While this program aims to support individual practitioners, heritage organizations may apply to pay for their staff’s professional development. We ask that you identify the staff member(s) and answer the questions in the application from the perspective of the staff member.
- You have not yet received funding from this program in 2025.
- Multiple staff, board members, or volunteers from the same organization may apply for the same opportunity, but each must submit a unique application.
- We do not fund K-12 schools, school districts, or religious institutions.
If you receive funding, you’ll need to provide us with your Social Security number to receive payment. Organizations, community groups, and public agencies will need to provide us with a Tax ID or EIN to receive grant funds.
Your Project
- Your proposed project is your participation in the identified professional development or learning opportunity. We do not ask you to produce a cultural project in order to receive this award. If awarded funding, you must complete participation in the proposed opportunity to receive funding.
- Your project must start at least two months from the application date and be completed within 12 months of the award date.
- The opportunity should be clearly relevant to a need in the heritage field. This can be one or more of the 8 key findings articulated in the King County Heritage Report: Understanding the Field, a need created or elevated by COVID-19 pandemic, or a need established as a common interest among heritage practitioners. Let us know your sources (reports, articles, conversations with heritage practitioners, survey results, etc) in your application.
- Religious worship, instructions, and tuition for college, graduate school, or PhD programs are not eligible. Professional certificate programs are allowed as long as it is not tied to earning a degree and meet all other eligibility requirements.
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Helping You Succeed
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Helping You Succeed
We provide hands-on guidance to each Heritage Professional Development Stipend applicant as you work through your application. Please contact Megumi Nagata to begin the process.
Workshops
Workshops can make a real difference in the success of your application. They’re an opportunity for you to get your questions answered by a 4Culture grant manager and learn from other applicants. All workshops will be held remotely. Please register via the links provided to receive Zoom meeting information. You will need a personal Zoom account in order to attend a workshop. If you are unable to attend, a workshop recording will be available.
Resources
You can read a sample application that successfully received funding for inspiration.
Looking for professional development opportunities or networks? Check out our Heritage Field Resources page.
Contact
Megumi Nagata, Heritage Program Manager
(206) 263-3474
Translation and Assistance
The guidelines, a detailed explanation of how to apply, and the application are in English. If this is a barrier that stops you from understanding the grant or applying due to limited English writing ability, visual impairment, or you would like to request assistance to create an application, please contact or call (206) 296-7580 or TTY 711, and we will make sure you get the support you need.
Español (Spanish)
Las pautas, la explicación detallada de cómo enviar la solicitud y la solicitud están en inglés. Si esto le impide comprender la información relacionada con la beca o enviar una solicitud debido a una limitación en la capacidad para escribir en inglés, si tiene una discapacidad visual o si desea recibir asistencia para crear una solicitud, escriba a o llame al (206) 296-7580 o TTY 711, y nos aseguraremos de que obtenga la ayuda que necesita.
Русский (Russian)
Руководство, подробная инструкция и форма заявки на английском языке. Если вам сложно разобраться в процедуре получения грантов или подачи заявок из-за ограниченных навыков письменного английского языка либо нарушений зрения, а также если вы бы хотели обратиться за помощью при составлении заявки, отправьте письмо на адрес электронной почты или позвоните по номеру (206) 296-7580 или 711 (телетайп), и мы позаботимся о том, чтобы вы получили необходимую помощь.
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Hướng dẫn, giải thích chi tiết về cách nộp đơn va tài liệu áp dụng tất cả đều bằng Tiếng Anh. Nếu đây là rào cản khiến quý vị không hiểu được khoản trợ cấp hoặc cách nộp đơn do khả năng viết tiếng Anh hạn chế, do quý vị bị suy giảm thị lực hoặc muốn yêu cầu hỗ trợ để tạo đơn đăng ký, làm ơn liên hệ hoặc gọi (206) 296-7580 hay TTY 711 và chúng tôi sẽ hỗ trợ những gì quý vị cần.
Soomaali (Somali)
Tilmaamaha, sharaxaadda faahfaahsan ee ku saabsan sida loo codsado, iyo waraaqda codsiga waxa ay dhammaan ku qoran yihiin Af-Ingiriisi. Haddii ay arrintani tahay caqabad kaa hor istaageysa fahamka deeqda ama codsashada oo ay sabab u tahay awoodda qorista Af-Ingiriisiga oo xadidan, araggaaga oo liita, ama aad jeclaan lahayd inaad codsato in lagaa caawiyo in aad codsi sameyso, fadlan la xiriir ama wac (206) 296-7580 ama TTY 711, waxaana xaqiijin doonnaa inaad hesho taageerada aad u baahan tahay.
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After You Submit
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After You Submit
Timeline
The deadline for the Heritage Professional Development Stipend is ongoing until 5:00 pm on October 31, 2025, or until funds run out. Please allow at least two months between submitting your application and the start date of the professional development or learning opportunity. Requests with less than two months lead time will not be accepted. Once you have submitted your application, you will receive an email notification within one month.
Equity Investment
4Culture recognizes that where an organization or cultural worker is based or provides its services can affect access to funding and other resources. Many cultural organizations and cultural workers in greater King County have less access to public and private support than those located in Seattle. To take a step towards balancing these disparities,30% of the available funds are reserved for applicants in an Equity Investment area.
Projects qualify as being in an Equity Investment area by meeting one of the following requirements:
- The applicant is located outside of the City of Seattle.
- The applicant is located Seattle but is also in Communities of Opportunity.
Contracts and Payment
If we select your project for funding, 4Culture Heritage staff will work with you to create a contract outlining the scope and a payment schedule, which is done by reimbursement. The final payment will be after you have participated in the proposed opportunity. If the proposed opportunity is cancelled or you are unable to participate in the proposed opportunity, the award cannot be used for another opportunity.
Requirements and Appeals
Learn about what will be required if you are awarded a grant, and about the process for appeal of a 4Culture decision.
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Apply
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Apply
Contact 4Culture Heritage staff today! Applying for a Heritage Professional Development Stipend starts with a conversation between you and a 4Culture Heritage staff member, who will ask you some additional questions to ensure this program is right for you and give you tips on how to complete your application. Once we confirm your eligibility, we will send you a link to the application. Application deadline is 5:00 pm on October 31, 2025. All applicants will be notified if they were awarded funding or not.
The Application
Applications must be submitted through the application form on the grant portal and email submissions are not accepted. The application asks about your role in the heritage field, details about the professional development opportunity, how it helps with your career growth or maintenance, and how it addresses a field-wide and an itemized budget.
Demographic Information
Your profile in our portal must provide demographic information for the current year, for yourself, or if you are applying as an organization, for your board and staff. We use this information to help us understand how well we are doing in our efforts to reach all communities in King County.