The Enterprise Office raises funds for Endowment activities, creates partnerships with other federal agencies and private organizations, implements Endowment-wide special initiatives and explores leadership opportunities for the agency. NEH grants are awarded on a competitive basis. Funding decisions are made on the basis of merit and significance. 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 fiscal year 1998, about 650 scholars, professionals in the humanities and other experts served on approximately 125 review 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. The advice of evaluators is assembled by the Endowment's staff, who comment on matters of fact or on significant issues that would otherwise be missing from the review. These materials are then presented to the National Council on the Humanities, which meets three times a year to advise the chairman. The chairman takes into account the advice provided by the review process and, by law, makes the final decision about funding. In 1972, the NEH established the Jefferson Lecture, the federal government's highest award for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.