Advising the chairman is a national Council of 26 distinguished private citizens, also presidentially appointed and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, who serve staggered six-year terms. In the most recently completed fiscal year, the Endowment funded less than one out of every six applications reviewed. Funding decisions are made on the basis of the application's merit and the significance of the project. Each application is assessed by knowledgeable persons outside the Endowment who are asked for their judgments about the quality and significance of the proposed projects. In the fiscal year 1996, about 500 scholars, professionals in the humanities and other experts served on approximately 100 panels.
Panelists represent a diversity of disciplinary, institutional, regional and cultural backgrounds.
In some programs the judgment of panelists is supplemented by individual reviews from specialists who have extensive knowledge of the specific area or technical aspects of the application under review. In 1972, NEH established the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities. D.C. Past Jefferson Lecturers include Toni Morrison, Vincent Scully, Gwendolyn Brooks, Walker Percy, Cleanth Brooks, Sydney Hook, Barbara Tuchman, Saul Bellow, John Hope Franklin, Robert Penn Warren, Erik Erikson, and Lionel Trilling. In 1988, NEH established the Charles Frankel Prize to recognize persons for outstanding contributions to the public's understanding of the humanities. Recipients include Rita Dove, Bill Moyers, David McCullough, Charles Kuralt, Allan Bloom, Eudora Welty, Ken Burns, Karl Haas, Mortimer Adler, and Daniel Boorstin.