Osage Heritage Fund
Mandate
The Osage Heritage Fund makes capital grants to historical-preservation projects on the Osage Reservation — physical sites, oral-history programmes, photographic and film archives, and capital improvements to museums and cultural-protocol institutions.
Eligibility
- Geography. Funding is restricted to projects located within the historical Osage reservation as constituted in 1872 — today’s Osage County, Oklahoma.
- Priority. Work coordinated with the Osage Nation, the Osage Nation Museum, and the four traditional districts (Pawhuska, Grayhorse, Hominy, and the Wakon-tah / Council Hill cluster) receives standing priority.
- Counterpart. Awards are made to non-profit organisations, tribal-government departments, or community trusts with active 501(c)(3) status or tribal-government recognition.
- Sacred materials. Funded projects may not depict, license, or commercialise ceremonial regalia, songs, dances, or sacred materials without the express consent of the Nation acting through its own institutions.
RFP cycle
The Request for Proposals opens 1 April each year. Proposals are due 15 July. Awards are announced in October. Reporting is annual; capital projects file a final use-of-funds report within sixty days of completion.
Award sizes
Typical awards are made in the four-to-six figure range, sized to the documented capital need of the project. Multi-year awards are made selectively for projects with phased capital plans. We do not run small-grants programmes through this fund; smaller need is routed through the Wazhazhe Archive or through Osage Giving as appropriate.
Audit and reporting
The Foundation publishes a consolidated annual report by 1 August each year, including the full Heritage Fund award slate, dollar amounts, and project-level outcomes. The Foundation’s Form 990 is filed within the standing statutory window and posted on this site.
Engagement
RFP and award inquiries: [email protected]. Tribal-government counterparts requiring confidential pre-proposal conversation: [email protected].