Museums Alaska, in partnership with Rasmuson Foundation, manages the Collections Management Fund (CMF) grant program for the Alaska museum and cultural center sector.
We are delighted to award $126,792.66 this grant cycle—funding seven organizations through the 2026 Collections Management Fund (CMF).
A huge thank you goes out to our funder, Rasmuson Foundation, for their longtime support of this impactful grant program. Because of their generosity, Museums Alaska has been able to award over $1.9 million to museums and cultural centers for collections management projects over the years.
Through the CMF grant program, museums and cultural centers apply for funding to improve their ability to care for and share their collections. Since 2013, museums and cultural centers across the state have made major improvements to their collections management practices because they had access to this unique grant program.
And another big thank you goes to our panelists, who volunteered their time and expertise to serve on the panels for these grants. We appreciate all of your work!
This year, we have funded projects in Anchorage, Sitka, Seward, Valdez, Kodiak, and Unalaska:
Congratulations to our 2026 CMF grantees:
- $13,800 – The Valdez Museum & Historical Archive will focus on preserving Valdez’s digital heritage by investing in preservation tools, staff training, and institution-wide workflows and policies necessary to establish a strong foundation for “born-digital” collecting.
- $19,871.16 – The Museum of the Aleutians will conduct a phased condition check, catalog update, and rehousing of over 700 containers of archaeological material. These collections, excavated by leading Aleutian researchers, will be stabilized in archival housing and fully inventoried, ensuring long term preservation and accessibility for research, exhibitions, and community use.
- $16,525 – Seward Museum will purchase three mannequins and one display case that will highlight objects from its permanent collection on three topics in Seward’s history: Sports, World War II, and the Red Light District.
- $20,000 – The Kodiak History Museum will partner with Kodiak community groups to enhance and create community photograph archive collections through a series of photograph identification and collection programs.
- $16,796.50 – The Sitka Historical Society will contract a professional conservator to assess 22 items in their textile collection, conduct light surface cleaning where needed, and deliver hands-on training for staff, interns, and volunteers to ensure that their textile collection is cared for, handled, and stored according to best practices.
- $19,800 – The Alaska Native Heritage Center will contract with a conservator to execute treatments on several Alaska Native gut parkas within the organization’s collection. This project will create documentation on communities of origin and prepare the objects for studies that will be done by Alaska Native community members.
- $20,000 – The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association will contract with an archivist to focus on a 1999 donation from anthropologist and historian Lydia T. Black and to provide an assessment for processing additional records in the collections. The archivist will also provide training to help staff better manage the archives.