Nashua Historical Society

The single most important thing a grant seeker needs to know about the Nashua Historical Society is that it is not a general-purpose grantmaking foundation, despite carrying roughly $6.5M in total assets (FY2024) and reporting $270K-$304K in annual 'total giving' on recent Form 990s. That total-giving figure reflects the Society's own program and operating expenditures (museum operations, collections care, curator salary) — the actual philanthropic outlay to outside parties is a single award: the Edmund M. Keefe Memorial Scholarship, totaling only $1,000-$2,000 per year across one or two recipients. There is no open RFP, no letter-of-inquiry process, and no funding for nonprofit programs, capital projects, or general operating support to other organizations. Nonprofits and program directors searching for a funder should look elsewhere; the only realistic 'applicant' is a graduating Nashua, NH high school senior planning to enroll in higher education, with preference given to students pursuing history or a related field. The relationship is a one-shot annual cycle rather than a multi-year funder relationship: applicants submit materials by April 28, the volunteer-run Education Committee reviews submissions, and winners are notified in May and invited to the Society's Annual Meeting to receive the award publicly. There is no site visit, no post-award reporting requirement evident from public records, and no indication of a renewal or multi-year scholarship track — recipients such as Kaitlyn West and Sabrin Yamina Astol received the award across two grant cycles ($2,000 combined each), suggesting occasional repeat funding is possible but not guaranteed. Given the Society is entirely volunteer-run (all officer titles list $0 compensation until FY2022, when curator staffing began), first-time applicants should expect a personal, low-bureaucracy process — a phone call to (603) 883-0015 or email to nashuahistorical@comcast.net during Tuesday-Thursday office hours is a reasonable and welcomed way to ask questions before applying. Organizations seeking mission-aligned partnership (rather than funding) — for exhibit collaborations, oral history projects, or REV250 (America's 250th anniversary) programming tie-ins — may find the Society receptive as a community partner even though it cannot write checks to other 501(c)(3)s.

On paper, Form 990 filings show 'total giving' of $304,416 (FY2023), $304,320 (FY2022), $270,529 (FY2021), $279,852 (FY2020), and $298,403 (FY2019) — a remarkably stable $270K-$304K band. But the DB's own grant-level data shows only $2,000 (2023), $2,000 (2022), $1,000 (2021), and $1,047 (2020) actually reached outside recipients as scholarships; the remainder of 'total giving' is the Society's internal program spend (museum operations, collections, curator salary), not third-party grants. The true scholarship fund — the Edmund M. Keefe Memorial Scholarship — has a lifetime average grant of $1,008 across 6 recorded awards totaling $6,047, with a tight range of $1,000-$2,000 per recipient per cycle (a student can apparently receive the award across two years, as with Kaitlyn West and Sabrin Yamina Astol, each totaling $2,000). All 6 recorded grantees are located in New Hampshire — this is a hyper-local, Nashua-residents-only fund, not a state or regional program. On the balance-sheet side, assets have grown from $5,315,216 (2012) to $6,523,373 (2024), a roughly 23% increase over 12 years, funded primarily by net investment income (ranging $112,522 to $351,694 annually) rather than new contributions, which have been modest and volatile ($1,532 to $81,801 per year, with no clear trend). FY2024 revenue spiked sharply to $1,198,962 versus a typical $227,000-$465,000 range in prior years — likely a one-time bequest or large gift rather than a change in scholarship funding capacity. Officer compensation appeared for the first time in FY2022 ($95,517) and rose to $103,492 in FY2023, after being $0 in every prior year on record (2012-2020), reflecting the addition of paid curatorial staff rather than any shift in grantmaking scale. Grant seekers should not extrapolate from the $6.5M asset base to expect a larger giving capacity — the scholarship budget has not moved meaningfully in over a decade.

All three organizations are historical societies/museums first and grantmaking bodies second, if at all — this is a structural pattern among local NH historical societies, which typically hold endowment-like assets to fund their own collections and operations rather than distribute grants externally. The Nashua Historical Society is distinguished from its larger peers (NH Historical Society, Manchester Historic Association) only by maintaining one small named scholarship; the two peer organizations show no public scholarship or grants program at all, and Manchester's association is itself a grant *recipient* from larger NH funders rather than a source of funding. Grant seekers evaluating this class of funder should expect museum partnership or in-kind collaboration opportunities far more readily than cash awards.

The Society's public activity in 2025-2026 has centered entirely on REV250 (the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution) programming rather than any expansion of its funding activity. Confirmed events include a Deborah Sampson speaker talk on December 9, 2025 (7:00-8:30 PM), an Old South Burial Ground tour on September 6, 2025 ($20/ticket), and two free public performances of "Declaring Independence: Then & Now" on June 4, 2026 at the Florence H. Speare Memorial Museum, covered by the Nashua Telegraph on 2026-05-12. A "Tea Party 2026" Red-White-and-Blue-themed event is also part of the extended REV250 slate, which the Society pushed from a single-year 2025 program into a two-year 2025-2026 run. On the scholarship side, the 2025 Edmund M. Keefe Memorial Scholarship went to Zachary Campbell, a Nashua High School South graduate — consistent with the fund's historical pattern of one or two recipients per cycle at $1,000-$2,000 each. Leadership for the 2025-2026 term is Dean Shalhoup (President), Roger Lochhead (1st Vice President), Greg Hackney (Treasurer), Suzanne Smith (Assistant Treasurer), Matthew Bull (Secretary), and Alan Raymond (Assistant Secretary), with Beth McCarthy serving as Curator — no leadership changes were flagged in available records beyond normal annual officer rotation (the DB's people list shows several director and officer names, e.g., Jeannine T Levesque as Treasurer and Mary Jauris as Secretary, that predate the current 2025-2026 slate, indicating routine board turnover rather than a major governance shift). No new grant programs, funding priority changes, or major gift announcements beyond the FY2024 revenue spike were found in public news coverage.

There is exactly one funding stream to apply to here — the Edmund M. Keefe Memorial Scholarship — and it is for graduating Nashua, NH high school seniors only, not for nonprofits, researchers, or out-of-town students. The application window closes April 28 each year, and recipients are notified in May; there is no rolling or off-cycle review, so late submissions should not be attempted. The package is short by design: a completed application form (available at nashuahistoricalsociety.org/forms, with PDF fallback since the online form 'will not work with Internet Explorer'), an official high school transcript, and exactly one letter of recommendation from a school faculty member — do not over-submit extra letters or supplemental essays beyond what's requested, as the volunteer Education Committee reviews a small applicant pool by hand. Because preference explicitly goes to students with an interest in history or a related field, applicants should use their recommendation letter and any personal statement space to connect their intended course of study or extracurriculars to local history, preservation, museum studies, or a related discipline — generic scholarship language will not stand out to a committee built around this Society's specific mission ('Preserving the Past for the Future'). Winners are expected to attend the Society's Annual Meeting to receive the award in person, so applicants (or their families) should confirm availability for that spring meeting date rather than treating this as a mail-only transaction. Since the Society has no dedicated development/grants staff — it is run by volunteer officers with office hours limited to Tuesday-Thursday, 9am-4pm — the single most effective relationship-building step is a direct phone call to (603) 883-0015 or email to nashuahistorical@comcast.net during those hours to confirm the current year's deadline and ask any eligibility questions before submitting, since website content can lag behind actual committee practice at an all-volunteer organization this small. Do not approach this organization expecting a nonprofit program grant, capital grant, or general operating support — that is simply not a service this entity offers, based on 10+ years of consistent Form 990 data showing scholarship-only external giving.