New Orleans Francophone Nonprofit Awarded NEH Grants

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Site Staff,

NEW ORLEANS (press release) — The New Orleans Foundation for Francophone Cultures (Nous), a cultural nonprofit, received two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

With a focus on Cajun, Creole and Indigenous communities, Nous is committed to preserving and promoting Louisiana’s heritage cultures.

$25,000 Celebrate America grant
- The Celebrate America grant will support Nous’s project, One Single Place: The Louisiana Territory and the Shaping of the Early American Republic, which will culminate in an exhibition and symposium exploring the communities living along the Mississippi River at the time of the Louisiana Purchase (1803).
$50,000 Public Impact Project grant
- The Public Impact Project grant will support a companion exhibition, Vie, Liberté et Recherche du Bonheur: The Reception of the Declaration of Independence in Louisiana (1776-1803), which will examine how the Declaration of Independence and its revolutionary ideals were received, translated and understood in French-speaking Louisiana.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026, these grants allow Nous to explore how French and Creole-speaking communities in Louisiana helped shape the ideals embedded in the national motto, e pluribus unum (out of many, one).

Commenting on the importance of the awards, Scott Tilton, co-founder and co-director of New Orleans Foundation for Francophone Cultures, stated, “While Louisiana wasn’t formally a part of the United States at the country’s founding, communities up and down the river played a major role in how the country evolved in its first decades. These people were not passengers of history, but protagonists whose impacts are still felt today.”

Additionally, these awards mark a milestone moment for the New Orleans francophone nonprofit, which recently opened its new cultural center at 602 Toulouse Street in the French Quarter, a project described as having “brought French back to the French Quarter.”

For the America 250 commemorations, the NEH awarded $75.1 million to 84 humanities projects nationwide. Nous is one of only two organizations in Louisiana selected in this highly competitive funding cycle, an important achievement as the nonprofit celebrates its fifth anniversary this year.