History organizations in Ohio are fighting to save a grant program that has funded everything from an effort to collect veterans’ stories to a project that will open rock ’n’ roll critic Jane Scott’s notes to the public.
The program, called the Ohio History Fund, is threatened by insufficient donations through a checkoff on state income tax returns. If it doesn’t bring in $150,000 in donations this year through the checkoff, it stands to be dropped from the tax form.
That possibility has prompted the state’s historical society, Ohio History Connection, to launch an email campaign urging state legislators to give the fund a reprieve if it doesn’t meet the threshold. Museums, historical societies and other history organizations are spreading the word to their supporters and asking them to write to their state senators and representatives.
The fund provides matching grants for history projects in Ohio. The money comes from taxpayers who choose to fill out a box on their Ohio income tax return and donate part of their tax refunds.
Some of the grants have gone to large organizations such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, which is using the $14,500 it received in 2015 to make available the notes and papers Scott amassed during some 40 years covering rock music for the Plain Dealer.
But many of the grants go to small museums and historical societies such as the Warren County Historical Society, which was awarded $3,972 this year to collect approximately 40 oral histories from area veterans.
Many of the grant recipients lack deep pockets or the personnel to write complex grant applications, said Johnna McEntee, executive director of the Ohio Museums Association. The application process is simpler and the applicant pool smaller than with most other grants, she said.
“These funds are like manna for these small institutions,” McEntee said.
Kim Kenney, curator of the William McKinley Presidential Library & Museum in Canton, has been on both the giving and receiving end of Ohio History Fund grants. That’s why she sent an email Thursday urging museum supporters and other contacts to write to their legislators.
The McKinley Museum received $3,700 in 2014 to conserve two dresses that belonged to first lady Ida McKinley, a project that would have been hard to fund otherwise, Kenney said.
She also served on the team that awarded the first round of grants in 2012. The experience, she said, made her realize “how many wonderful things museums are doing in Ohio” and how little money is available to go around.
Leianne Neff Heppner, president and CEO of the Summit County Historical Society, said the grants often help organizations preserve artifacts that might otherwise be lost in a digital society. The historical society received $8,500 in 2014 to store and catalog its collection and create an online exhibit of some of the items.
“I am very concerned that the tax checkoff can be in jeopardy,” she said. “For so little money, so much is done.”
The history fund is one of six causes taxpayers can choose to support through tax return checkoffs. Besides the history fund, checkoffs support military injury relief, state nature preserves, breast and cervical cancer, wildlife species and wishes for sick children.
Ohio History Connection says on its website that the history fund generated an average of $154,000 a year in its first three years, 2012 to 2014. In 2015, however, donations dropped to less than $80,000.
An Ohio law that took effect in 2014 requires any fund supported by checkoffs to bring in $150,000 a year, said Gary Gudmundson, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Taxation. If a fund fails to reach that mark two years in a row, the law stipulates it must be dropped from the tax form.
The history fund wasn’t alone in seeing declines. Of the checkoff funds that were on the tax form in both 2014 and 2015, all saw their donations drop about 50 percent in that period, Gudmundson said.
“Why this sort of thing happens, we can’t say,” he said.
Both the history fund and the breast and cervical cancer fund fell short of the $150,000 mark in 2015. The others exceeded the threshold, even with the lower donations.
Gudmundson said that because of filing extensions, the state won’t know until sometime in 2017 how much the history fund took in this year and whether it can stay on the tax form.
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckABJ and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.