There is funding available for community organizations to help promote and strengthen Canada's documentary heritage.
The Library Archives Canada's (LAC) Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DHCP) is open for their 2025-2026 funding program.
Each year, the LAC gives roughly $1.5 million each year to community organizations so the communities can dedicate resources to projects that promote their heritage collections and make them more accessible, on top of strengthening the community's capacity to preserve Canada's documentary heritage.
Documentary heritage refers to the records and publications, both written and audio-visual, that reflect Canada's history.
They include things like photographs, maps, diaries, dictionaries and lexicons, treaties, audio and video recordings, and portraits.
The LAC's mandate is to acquire and preserve the documentary heritage of Canada, so it is available for future generations and be a source of enduring knowledge that is accessible to all, and contributes to the cultural, social, and economic advancement of Canada.
They also facilitate the cooperation among communities that are involved in the acquisition, preservation, and diffusion of knowledge, and acts as the continuing memory of the Government of Canada and its institutions.
As part of this funding, programs can receive up to 100 per cent of the project's eligible expenses.
Projects like the Alexis Oral Histories Project by the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation have received funding under this program in the past.
"Our government is committed to helping our country's documentary heritage organizations preserve this heritage. I invite them to submit their projects to the Program. Besides enriching our collective memory, they make our society, our culture and our history more representative," said the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Pascale St-Onge in a media release.
There is funding for one-year projects, with contributions ranging upwards of $50,000, or $60,00 for the organizations that are located in remote areas, and two-year-long projects.
The funding for the two-year-long projects is only available to previous DHCP recipients.
Applications for this funding must be submitted by end-of-day on January 9, 2025.
"LAC is proud to contribute to documenting, preserving and making accessible to the public stories that reflect the diverse experiences and cultures of Canadian society," they added in the media release.
To learn more about the funding and how to apply, click here.