Federal cuts by the Trump administration to museum and library funding nationwide have hit hard in Santa Cruz County, where the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) and the Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery have lost a combined $250,000 in federal grants.
The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the cuts earlier this week.
An executive order signed March 14 by President Donald Trump to cut funding for libraries and museums includes the IMLS, which is the only federal funding source solely for libraries. In 2024, the IMLS awarded $266.7 million to museums, libraries, and related organizations throughout the U.S.
The order means that the California State Library—the agency that delivers state and federal funding to local libraries—will lose its funding under the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). This year, LSTA funding amounts to more than $15 million.
MAH’s grant was intended to fund Unearthed, an initiative to digitize and make available online a collection of archival photographs from Santa Cruz County, while the NEH grants were earmarked for the upcoming exhibition Princes of Surf, as well as a collaboration with UC Santa Cruz on Oaxacan languages.
For the MOD, the IMLS funding supported a study of how national programs that encourage low-income families to visit change access to museums, and professional development for the board of directors.
“The loss of this grant is devastating,” said Rhiannon Crain, Executive Director at the Children’s Museum. “We work really hard at our small museum to ensure the services we provide to our local community are on par with the best children’s museums in the county. Grant funding has helped us do that.”
While no official accounting of canceled grants has been made public, it appears that thousands of similar grants to local institutions were cancelled. Since 1997, over $3.7 million of grant funding from IMLS to Santa Cruz museums has helped create the world-class museums our community deserves. Grants were terminated without proper review and with only a skeleton crew of staff remaining at both IMLS and NEH, getting answers to questions has been virtually impossible.
“It’s a major blow to the museum to lose this critical funding,” said MAH Executive Director Ginger Shulick Porcella. “The IMLS was our single largest funder, and their support enabled us to make our archives accessible to educators, students and the general public. We hope that values-aligned foundations and individuals will help us fill the gap left behind by this key funding source for the MAH.”
