Nancy Wilkie Emergency Fund for Heritage Preservation

Nancy Wilkie Emergency Fund for Heritage Preservation is sponsored by Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). This small grant provides rapid, flexible funding in response to urgent threats facing archaeological sites around the world.

Nancy Wilkie Emergency Fund for Heritage Preservation - American Journal of Archaeology International Archaeology Day Archaeologists in Classrooms Unearth a Story Summer Reading Resources Nancy Wilkie Emergency Fund for Heritage Preservation The Nancy Wilkie Emergency Fund for Heritage Preservation is designed to provide rapid, flexible funding in response to urgent threats facing archaeological sites around the world.

Through its Site Preservation Program , the Archaeological Institute of America has supported innovative preservation efforts across five continents. These sites hold irreplaceable stories about the people who came before us—and when a site is lost, so too is the history it embodies.

Today, archaeological sites face a wide array of threats, including development, armed conflict, looting, tourism, vandalism, and the accelerating impacts of climate change. In many cases, a timely intervention—often with relatively modest funding—can prevent irreversible damage. The Nancy Wilkie Emergency Fund normally offers grants of approximately $5,000; the committee has some discretion to make greater or smaller awards.

Payments can be made to NGOs, institutions, or when this is not possible, individuals. Applicants should confirm that the designated recipient of funding does not appear on the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List).

Examples of potential emergency interventions include: Acquiring and placing sandbags at museum buildings or archaeological sites ahead of anticipated armed conflict; Securing fragile remains unexpectedly uncovered or restoring those subjected to damage from development or weather-related disasters; Arranging for emergency 3D documentation, quickly deploying a conservator to a site, or soliciting crowd-sourced data about a site or monument subject to destruction.

This discretionary fund ensures that critical, on-the-ground actions can be taken when they are most needed—preserving our shared heritage before it is lost forever.

Nancy Wilkie (1942-2021) was a former AIA president, chair and long-time member of the AIA’s Conservation and Site Preservation Committee, founding member of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, faculty member at Carlton College, and Bush and Obama appointee to the U.S. Cultural Property Advisory Committee.

Establishing emergency funds for site preservation honors and recognizes Nancy’s tireless efforts for the protection and conservation of archaeological heritage around the world and allows for immediate and impactful results. Hatay Mustafa Kemal University The AIA is North America's largest and oldest nonprofit organization dedicated to archaeology.

The Institute advances awareness, education, fieldwork, preservation, publication, and research of archaeological sites and cultural heritage throughout the world. Your contribution makes a difference. Archaeological Institute of America