Welcome to the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Informational video on Museums Empowered Grant Program
Applicant Information Session. My name is Mark Isaksen. One of
the program staff in the Office of Museum Services is at IMLS
and I'll be narrating this presentation for you.
The goal of this video is to provide an overview of our
Museums Empowered Grant program in the process of preparing an
application for funding. The video is organized into six
chapters. First, is "What is Museums Empowered?". This
introductory section explains the purpose of the design of the
grant program. Next, is "What can Museums Empowered Grants
Fund?". This section provides a detail on the types of projects
funded in the grant program and the amount of funds that can be
requested. Next, is "Application Components and Introduction",
which describes the types of documents that are needed to
create a grant application. Then next is the "Application
Components - Narrative" section, providing guidance on composing
the narrative part of the application. Then "Application
Components - Budget",
which provides information on what to include in your project
budget and finally, "Application Tips and Next Steps", which
offers a few tips and next steps on preparing and submitting your
grant application. The complete set of instructions for how to
prepare and submit a Museums Empowered grant application are
found in the "Notice of Funding Opportunity", published on
Grants.gov and available on the IMLS website.
Please refer to the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the most
detailed information on preparing your application. To
get the most out of this video, we recommend that you watch it
in an entirety. This will give you an understanding of the
Museums Empowered grant program, the types of projects that can
be funded, and the necessary application components. You may
also want to review the Museums Empowered Notice of Funding
Opportunity before, during, or after you watch the video.
Notices of Funding Opportunities, known as NOFOs,
are documents that detail the requirements of each of our
grant programs. All of them can be found on our website as you
navigate the application process. You can use this video
as a reference tool, and if you'd like to get to a specific
section, please use the time bar or the links in the description
box to navigate to a specific chapter.
In this section, we will answer the question what is Museums
Empowered, providing information on the purpose and intent of the
grant program and who it is designed to serve. Museums
Empowered is a special initiative of the Museums for
America or MFA grant program. Now, like MFA, the Museum's
Empower grant program is designed to strengthen the
ability of an individual museum to serve its public.
However, what's unique in Museums Empowered is the
emphasis on helping your museum tap into the transformative
power of professional development and training to
generate a systemic change within your museum. These
projects are expected to involve multiple levels of staff,
leadership, and volunteers in a set of logical interrelated
activities tied directly to addressing a key need or
challenge in your strategic plan.
Museums Empowered, sometimes referred to as ME, is a grant
program that supports projects that focus on a key component of
your museum strategic plan. IMLS wants to help advance something
that is a priority for your museum, and hopefully something
that will ultimately benefit your community. To help
demonstrate that connection in your grant application, we ask
for a summary of your strategic plan, usually no more than two
pages.
So that reviewers will be able to understand how your proposed
projects activities will further your institutional goals and
objectives. The Strategic Plan Summary is your opportunity to
make a thoughtful and well-constructed connection
between the proposed project and your museum's priorities. Now,
keep in mind that Museums Empowered is a grant program for
museums.
And as a museum, you should keep in mind that all applicants must
meet certain requirements to be eligible for federal funding.
Your organization must be located in one of the United
States, its territories, or the District of Columbia; and your
organization must be a unit of state, local or tribal
government, or a private nonprofit organization with tax
exempt status. Now, if you meet those two requirements, then the
next step is to consider what it means to be eligible for IMLS
funding as a museum.
And museums must: have at least one full time or equivalent
professional staff, person, paid or unpaid; have a physical
location that it owns or operates; have been open to the
public for at least 120 days in the year prior to the
application deadline; and own or use tangible objects. Museums
may be stand-alone organizations, or part of a
larger institution such as a college, university, tribe, or
state or local government.
And again, ME is a grant program for all types of museums. Now,
here's a brief list of some of the types of museums that
routinely apply to this grant program. If you have any
questions about eligibility, feel free to reach out to a
program staff person to talk further about eligibility for
the grant program. In this section, we'll answer the
question, "What can Museums Empowered grants fund?".
Writing details on the types of projects and associated goals
within the Museums Empowered grant program, as well as offer
some summary data on the number and type of projects that were
funded last year. Museums Empowered grants are designed to
support project-based activities, so let's take a
minute to consider exactly what that means. The Project
Management Institute has a good definition, which is: a
temporary endeavor
undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
They go on further to explain that a project is temporary
because it has a defined beginning and end, and therefore
a defined scope and resources. A project is unique in that it is
not a routine operation, but rather a specific set of
operations designed to accomplish a singular goal.
So, we recommend that you keep this definition in mind as you
conceptualize your IMLS project. Think of it as a temporary,
non-routine set of activities which collectively have a
beginning and an end in time, and therefore defined scope,
requiring specific resources which are designed to accomplish
a specific, singular goal.
But keeping our focus on project-based activities, let's
look a little further at what characteristics are most often
seen in successful Museums Empowered applications. First
off is "Institutional Impact". The project uses professional
development for staff at multiple levels of the
organization with the goal of generating systemic change
within a museum. Creating that institutional impact. Next, is
"In-Depth Knowledge".
The project design reflects A thorough understanding of
current practice and knowledge about the subject matter. You
demonstrate that in the writing of your application narrative.
"Project-based Design": the work consists of a set of logical
interrelated activities tied directly to addressing the key
need or challenge. And lastly is "Demonstrable Results". So, your
project should generate a measurable result or set of
results
that tie directly to the need or challenge it was designed to
address. The successful projects most often exemplify all these
four characteristics and fit well within the Museums
Empowered grant program. It's been our experience that
unfunded applications fail to deliver convincingly on one or
more of these areas. Keep these in mind as you're crafting your
scope of work and narrative for your application.
Now, if project-based design and institutional impact are core
elements of your idea, then now it's time to consider how your
application aligns with the grant program goals and
associated objectives. The four Museums Empowered program goals
are: First, "Digital Technology":
providing museum staff with the skills to integrate digital
technology into museum operations. Next, "Diversity,
Equity Inclusion", which is supporting museum staff in
providing inclusive and equitable services to people of
diverse geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds,
as well as to individuals with disabilities. The third goal is
around evaluation.
To the strengthening and the ability of a museum and its
staff to use evaluation as a tool to shape museum programs
and improve outcomes. And the last goal is around
organizational management, where we want to strengthen and
support museum staff as the essential part of a resilient
organizational culture. Now let's take a look
at each goal in a little more detail. Goal One supports
projects that provide museum staff with the skills to
integrate digital technology into museum operations, and this
might involve activities that support staff learning and
integration of digital communication platforms and
social media tools to enhance audience engagement and
community outreach, or it could be activities that support staff
learning
and integration of digital tools and services that enhance access
to museum collections, for example. And the emphasis here
is on staff learning and integration of these new tools,
not just the acquisition of the new tools. Now here's an example
of a recently funded project in the digital technology area. The
Children's Museum of Indianapolis was awarded
$250,000 -- this is back in 2021 --
to increase its capacities to prepare for and respond to new
and evolving cybersecurity threats, including those related
to COVID-19 as the public health emergency. Now, we've also made
this available as a sample application, with the narrative
and schedule available as a PDF on the ILMS website. Now, go to
Search Awarded Grants and search by log number to find this
entry, or use the hyperlink at the bottom of this slide.
Here's another example of a digital technology focused
project. The Phillips Collection, right here in
Washington, DC, was awarded $239,000 -- this is back in 2022
-- to improve staff understanding of digital asset
management practices and build consensus around how to best
tour these assets.
So in this project they were putting together a cross
departmental staff team to engage in informal and formal
training designed to develop skills to allow them to select
and roll out the museum's first digital asset management system.
Again, this is the link available on our website if you
want more information about this project.
Goal Two focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion and
supports projects that help museum staff and providing
inclusive and equitable services to people of diverse geographic,
cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds and to individuals
with disabilities. Now, this might involve activities that
create training and learning opportunities that increase
cultural competency of museum staff
or enhance relevancy of museum programs or maybe activities
that develop and implement inclusive and equitable
fellowship programs or internship programs or mentoring
programs that can increase support for emerging
professionals from diverse communities entering the museum
field. So again, here are some examples of recently funded
projects in 2023 we awarded to the Wildlife Conservation
Society
a $250,000 grant to create a new training program, and this is
focused on supervisors of internship programs in five New
York City wildlife focused parks operated by the Wildlife
Conservation Society. That's both in the Bronx Zoo, the
Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park and Queens Zoos and the New York
Aquarium. And this was a professional development
training program,
which had a multi-part focus on youth development, cultural
competency, supervising young adults, mentoring and career
support to help the intern supervisors develop the
necessary skills to succeed in this important role. Now again,
we've made this available as a sample application with the
narrative and schedule available as a PDF on the IMLS website and
you can also use the hyperlink here to find that.
And lastly, there was a project to support the Boise Museum of
Art in Boise, ID and $191,000, to increase its ability to serve
members of its community with disabilities. With an emphasis
on the deaf and hard of hearing community, the museum will
develop a series of participatory planning processes
working with consultants, working with community members
and ASL interpreters to identify and test tools to make the
museum more accessible. Now, Goal Three supports projects
that strengthen the ability of museum staff to use evaluation
as a tool to shape museum programs and improve outcomes.
This might involve activities that increase staff knowledge of
program evaluation methods and the usefulness of evaluation
reports, tools, data, and metrics.
More activities that provide museum staff with the tools and
strategies to adapt evaluation methods to address a specific
audience for institutional need. Here's an example of recently
funded project focused on evaluation. This was at the
Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, and they were awarded
$247,000 this past year to improve the design and outcomes
of their youth programs
by developing a comprehensive approach to use program
evaluation, working with the consultant and part time
evaluation associate who's going to work with the project team to
both engage youth in developing new evaluation protocols,
developing new techniques, a multisensory evaluation
framework, and then piloting that within the museum.
Again, this is also available as a sample application with the
narrative and schedule available as a PDF on the IM:S website.
Another example focused on evaluation is here on screen.
It's the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables,
FL, which was awarded $219,000 to improve the design and
outcomes of its programs by developing an institution wide
approach to evaluation.
And essentially creating an evaluation strategic plan that
would be comprehensive and serve the entire organization. Goal
Four is about organizational management and is intended to
support museum staff as the essential part of a resilient
organizational culture. And this might involve activities that
help you to develop and implement comprehensive
organizational learning opportunities that address
One or more emerging priorities facing a museum. Or maybe it's
activities that you develop and implement programs to address
specific learning and growth opportunities that were
identified by staff needs assessments. So, it might come
upwards from staff through a needs assessment or through the
museum itself as priorities based on your planning efforts.
And some examples of what that looks like: We recently funded
in 2023 the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas,
TX, a $209,000 grant to develop a leadership professional
development program to help them attract talent and help grow the
next generation of museum leaders. Again, this is also
available as a sample application with the narrative
and schedule available as a PDF on the IMLS S website.
Another example here was at the Chinese Cultural Center of San
Francisco ordered a grant in 2022 for $199,000 to strengthen
staff, leadership and training as part of a succession plan,
and an external consultant was going to work with the museum
director to facilitate project activities, beginning with
assessment of staff strengths.
And then creating training opportunities and growth
opportunities for staff at all levels of the organization. And
finally, this example from the Denver Museum of Nature and
Science. They were rewarded a grant in 2022 for $211,000 to
develop a training program for emerging leaders in the museum.
Again, 6 cohorts, 12 staff members are going to participate
in a 12-week training program.
Working with training specialists and working on
leadership skills. Again, this is building leadership from
within the organization. Now, projects should fit within one
of these 4 grant program goals, and sometimes there's an overlap
in the kinds of activities that you're proposing, and it might
make it difficult to select one program goal. So here's some
strategies to help you select a goal that aligns best with your
project.
Think about what's at the center of your project. Who's going to
benefit? What will be improved once you've finished your
project? Decide who you want to review your application. Also
think about what kind of skill sets and experience you want
them to have. Maybe you want to list the activities that you
plan to carry out and assign to each goal and figure out which
goal gets the most and where will the most resources be
spent.
Why is your decision about which goal to choose so important?
Well, because it impacts the review process. Mostly because
your application will be likely to be reviewed by museum
professionals who have experience and expertise that's
aligned with one of those goals. And your application will also
be competing or be compared to other applications that have
chosen the same goal.
Our advice is to choose one program goal and write your
proposal accordingly. Regardless of the program goals selected,
all Museums Empowered project budgets must stay within a
specific range of funding. Your project budget can request the
minimum of $5,000 to a maximum of $250,000 in federal funds. If
you ask for less than five or more than 250,000 in federal
grant funds,
your application may be rejected. And remember to keep
your budget aligned to the scope and scale of your project,
including all costs necessary to complete the proposed
activities. Now, in this grant program, the budgets are
required to have at least a one-to-one non-federal cost
share. So, here are a few examples to illustrate the
point. If your total project budget was $100,000 --
all the activities, all the cost -- total project budget $100,000
-- then you'd be able to request $50,000 in federal grant fund
and a cost share of at least $50,000 and that would comprise
your entire budget for the project of $100,000. So, say
your total project budget was $300,000, so you'd be able to
ask for $150,000 in federal grant funds and then provide a
cost year of at least $150,00.
And if your total project budget was $500,000 -- well, you would
be able to request up to $250,000 in federal grant funds
and provide a cost share of at least $250,000. And remember,
cost share can take a number of forms. Among them are cash,
staff, time, volunteer time, third party contributions,
grants from foundations, support from state of local government.
Cost shared just can't be from another federal source. Now, the
amount of applications received and the amount of awards made
can vary from year to year. And here's a snapshot of our most
recent application and award cycle. In 2023, IMLS made 19
Museums Empowered awards for a total of about $3.8 million.
We received 53 applications last year, resulting in 36% of those
applications being funded. Now, about 47% of the awards were for
projects supporting the diversity and inclusion goal,
26% of the projects supported the organizational management
goal, 16% supported evaluation goal and 11% were in digital
technology.
Now, the number of awards in each category is proportional to
the number of applications received in each category. The
average amount of federal funds for each project was $202,000.
Now, on the IMLS website, you can use the Search Awarded
Grants function to explore our archive and grants that we have
rewarded in past years. Now, there are currently 155 Museums
and Power awards listed here
including those just announced in August. You can search the
database using a variety of criteria such as institution
name, location, and keyword. Your search will retrieve basic
information about each award, including the amount of federal
funds awarded in a brief description of the proposed
activities and expected results for each project. In this
section, we're going to introduce the components of a
Museums Empowered grant application
and provide an overview about the Required, Conditionally
Required and Supporting Documents. The Museums Empowered
Notice of Funding Opportunity or NOFO, includes a complete list
of all the application components. Most of these are
created by applicants and saved as a PDF for uploading as part
of your application package at Grants.gov. The table of
application components starting on page 7,
Section D28 of the NOFO lists which application components are
required as well as those that are conditionally required; and,
for example, some components are included in the application
depending on the type of applicant or the type of
project. Now, aside from the SF424S and the IMLS Museum
Program Information form, which are completed in Grants.gov, all
application components must be submitted as PDF documents.
So, these are the required documents. All applications must
include the documents listed here. Omission of even just one
may result in your application being rejected. Also, important
to note, there is a 7-page limit for the narrative. If you exceed
the page limit specified in the NOFO, we must remove the extras
before your application goes out for review.
So, that means your reviewer may see a paragraph or sentence end
in midair and will wonder about where the rest of it is. So,
make sure your content fits into the page limit specified and
make sure the number of pages holds when you convert your
document to a PDF. The second category of application
components is that of conditionally required
documents.
Some applications must include one, two or even all of these,
and it's your job to figure out which are required for your
application. Now, if you're applying as a nonprofit, then
you must include your proof of nonprofit status issued by the
Internal Revenue Service, the IRS. We will not accept the
letter of state sales tax exemption as proof. It has to be
the IRS determination letter.
If you are using a federally negotiated indirect cost rate in
your budget, then you must include a copy of your final
grade agreement. And if you're going to create digital products
during the course of your project, then you must complete
and submit a digital products plan. So, just like the required
documents, omitting one of these may result in your application
being rejected.
Now, for the Digital Products plan, you might want to note
that the term digital product includes any digitized or born
digital content, resource or asset or any software. So, if
you're creating any of these materials, be sure to look at
the instructions in the NOFO on how to create a Digital products
plan and which questions you need to answer. The third group
of application components
is supporting documents now. Supporting documents are
optional. You may submit one or none. Include only those items
that will supplement your proposal. This is not the place
to introduce brand new information, but it's an
opportunity to provide documents that support your project
justification, your work plan, and your project results listed
in your narrative, as well as, you know, supporting information
for your budget justification, for example.
So, maybe you've identified a partner whose involvement is key
to the project success. So, a letter of support or commitment
will go a long way to reassuring reviewers that they are on board
and the project will succeed. With this, you know, partner
that you've identified. You can also provide pictures, if you
need, by your institution or other kinds of information and
background about research that's helped develop
your project ideas that are listed in your narrative. Even
vendor quotes or specifications from consultants helps to show
that you've done some of the legwork in getting appropriate
estimates for project costs. And we recommend that you be
respectful of your reviewer's time and avoid any temptation to
include hundreds of pages of extraneous material. So, be
judicious in
your selection of supporting documents and it may help make
or break your application. Include what is important,
what's helpful, and what's directly relevant to your
project, and stop there. In the following sections of this
presentation, we're going to focus on these specific
application components: the narrative and the budget.
You can always go to the Notice of Funding Opportunity for
complete instructions on how to prepare and complete all of the
application components. And in this section, we're going to go
over the questions you'll need to answer in your project
narrative and offer details on the review criteria associated
with each section.
So, let's talk about the narrative of your proposal. You
have seven pages to cover three very important issues; and the
Notice of Funding Opportunity provides lengthy guidance on
what the narrative should cover. First, is the "Project
Justification". We're going to ask you to tell us what need,
problem or challenge your project will address and how it
was identified. So, describe how you have used
demographic information or other relevant data to define the
need, problem, or challenge. We're going to ask you who's the
target group for your project and how they have been involved.
Target group refers to those who will be most immediately and
positively affected by your projects. You might want to
identify the number of individuals in the group.
And also talk about who are the ultimate beneficiaries. And
beneficiaries refer to those who are likely to be aided in the
long term by your project. And it's maybe the same as your
target group, but it could be slightly different. And you want
to identify who these people are. Keep in mind that there
there's review criteria that each reviewer be looking at, and
this is found in Section E of the Notice of Funding
Opportunity.
And this is a list of questions that reviewers are asked to
consider when they review your proposal. And it's a good idea
to refer to these as you craft your narrative to be certain you
are providing reviewers clear, solid information. Now, you'll
see that these questions respond pretty directly with the prompts
that you're given to write your narrative. Most importantly here
for Museums Empowered, we want to make sure that the project
activities
are designed to use professional development and training to
generate systemic change within the museum. One of the prompts
in the project justification section of the narrative talks
about the need, problem or challenge, and how to identify.
So, keep in mind that the federal government wants to
invest in something and see that something's going to get better.
So, as you define your need, problem, or challenge, you want
to articulate what will get better as a result of your
project. Such as, will someone learn something, develop a
skill, or change an attitude maybe. So, you want to identify
why it's important that this change happens and really think
through your problem definition carefully in succinct terms.
And gather and present data that supports your problem definition
that you've outlined in your justification. In the "Project
Work Plan", we're talking about who, what, when, and how. So,
here we're saying who's going to do what activities when, and
using what resources? You should explain how you will track your
progress toward achieving your intended results; and what
you'll do if you need to correct course. And we also ask you to
think about risks that are inherent in your particular
project, and to tell us how you've taken them into account
of your planning. One thing to keep in mind here is
in the Museums Empowered project, we're going to want to
know how you are going to organize and structure the
project team to support equitable and inclusive
engagement of all participants. The list of review questions in
Section E of the Notice of Funding Opportunity are copied
here on this slide. These are the same questions we asked
reviewers to consider when they review your proposal.
So, you want to make sure your narrative is answering these
effectively. I'm going to dive a little deeper into one of the
questions, which is about risk. When we asked you to think about
risks that are inherent in your particular project, it means to
tell us how you've taken that into account in your planning.
So, think of this as answering the question, what if? There's
no checklist of risks, but every project has them.
And the best proposals will show that you are aware of them and
have thought through a plan for dealing with them. Look at your
activities, think about what could go wrong. Focus on the
ones where your experience, both of your own experience or that
of the staff at your museum -- where you're like, "Oh yeah,
that could happen." And identify steps that you would take in
response.
Now, we know things go differently than expected, and
we just want you to prepare by identifying any implementable
options. So, here are some examples of risk. A project may
be dependent upon fundraising to generate the cost-share, but if
it's not complete by the time the application is submitted,
what's the institution going to do if the funds aren't available
by the time the project starts?
Or say a project's going to plan to conduct listening sessions
with staff. What if staff feedback suggests different
needs, issues, or challenges? Which should be the priority for
training? Maybe a project is going to be using university
interns? And what happens if one or more interns drop out? How do
you replace them mid-project? Or maybe the project is going to
involve some key partners to achieve success, but maybe one
of them drops out mid-project. What do you do?
Yeah, just want you to think about these things, and if
they're likely to happen or possibly going to happen, you
know, we want to talk about them in the narrative. The third
section of your narrative should be devoted to articulating your
project's intended results, and this section is your chance to
convince the reviewers that your project will result in something
getting better.
The need or problem you identified in your project
justification will be addressed directly, diminished somehow, or
maybe improved in some way. Now, we ask you to tell us what data
you're going to collect and report in order to measure your
project success. If your project will generate some sort of
tangible product, this is also the chance to describe
what that is, you know, if it's a new training materials or
curriculum, or a database or something. And last but not
least, we ask that you tell us how you will sustain the benefit
of the project, particularly, beyond the period of
performance. Again, here's a list of the review questions
that reviewers are asked to consider, which are also found
in Section E of the Notice of Funding Opportunity. All of your
project's results should tie back
to your need, problem or challenge. There might be some
tangential benefits or positive outcomes, and you can also list
those two. But really focus on results. What do you expect is
going to happen when this project is completed? We often
hear that defining intended results and success measures is
a challenge for applicants, so it's worth spending a bit of
time on this here.
So, you know, think back to the question we referenced before
when we talked about defining the need problem or challenge.
And if you said someone's going to learn something -- how will
you know? And if you want to generate systemic change in your
museum -- how's that going to be measured? This focus on results
and measuring success in a meaningful way is not a new
concept, but
there has been a lot of work done in the field about ways to
measure success. So, for you as an applicant though, we
encourage you to consider using maybe a logic model, or an
outcome spaced evaluation tool, or some other rubric to explain
your intended results and your plan to achieve them. So, to
recap, your narrative has three sections: "Project
Justification",
"Project Work Plan", and "Project Results". You have 7
pages for it. The sections are all equally important. You might
clearly address what we asked you to do address. Keep an eye
on those review criteria. We're telling you in the NOFO and here
in this presentation exactly what the reviewers will look
for. So, you know, make it as easy as possible for them to
find the information they need and to understand it.
Next, in this section, we're going to: provide information on
what to include in your project budget and budget justification;
and provide some examples of allowable and unallowable costs.
An important component of your application is the budget, and
this is the part of the application where you specify
all the costs associated with your proposed project. The
budget consists of two required components:
the "IMLS Budget Form"; and the "Budget Justification". The
"IMLS Budget Form" is a fillable PDF that accommodates up to
three years of project activities and expenses. The
budget should include the project cost that will be
charged to grant funds as well as those that will be supported
by cost-share. In-kind contributions to cost-share may
include the value of services, such as donated volunteer or
consulting time.
You can also include equipment donated to the project that
happens between the authorized start and end dates of your
project. All the items listed, whether supported by grant funds
or cost share, must be necessary to accomplish project
objectives. They need to be allowable according to the
applicable federal cost principles, auditable, and
incurred during the award period of performance.
The "IMLS Budget Form" can be downloaded directly from the
IMLS website, and a screenshot of that is visible here on this
slide. As you develop your budget, keep in mind that there
are certain costs that are either allowable or unallowable
according to federal regulations. The allowability of
a cost item for all
federal grants are specified in the Code of Federal Regulations,
also known as CFR; and particularly "2 CFR 200", for
short. But the full title is, "Title 2, Subtitle A, Chapter
II, Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements,
Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal
Awards". Now, you can look up the "2 CFR 200" and use that as
a basis.
But we've also developed a short list of allowable costs that are
most common in the grant applications that come into this
program. The Notice of Funding Opportunity includes a partial
list of the most common examples as well as this short list,
which is shown on the slide. These are costs that may be part
of what you asked IMLS to pay for with federal funds. These
are costs that are allowable as cost-share as well.
Rules about allowability apply equally to grant funds as well
as cost-share. Now, when completing your project budget,
be sure to check that all the costs you include, whether grant
funds or cost share, are allowable. There are also some
costs which are unallowable, and according to the federal
regulations, in "2 CFR 200" they tell us which ones are
unallowable.
In the Notice of Funding Opportunity, we provided an
abbreviated list of these costs and also on this slide.
Unallowable costs may not be part of what you asked for us to
pay for, nor can they be part of what you will pay for as part of
your cost-share. In fact, unallowable costs can't show up
anywhere in your proposal. So, as you prepare your application,
check your list of proposed expenses.
against our list of unallowable and allowable costs. And if you
have any specific questions, please contact us and we'll be
happy to help. In addition to the budget form, you will also
prepare a budget justification. This is an opportunity to
provide in a more detailed narrative format, an explanation
or justification for the project costs.
Budget justification should be written to follow the cost
categories in the IMLS budget form. In the justification you
will identify each expense, show the method of cost computation
used to determine each amount, and include any that you may
have consolidated or summarized on the IMLS budget form. So, in
other words, this is the document where you're going to
show your math. For example, in the sections under "Salaries and
Wages",
you're going to identify each person whose salary or wage will
be paid with IMLS funds, or by cost-share, or contributed by
cost-share. And by their names, describe their role in the
project. And you want to document the method of cost
computation by including the base salary or wages for each
person, percentage of time that they're allocating to the
project, number of days, or percentage or hours.
If cost-share is being provided by unpaid volunteers, you're
going to explain how you arrived at the dollar amount used to
represent the value of their services. Here's another
example, in "Supplies, Materials, and Equipment", you
should list each type of supply, material and equipment you
propose to purchase, or that you're going to provide as
cost-share for the project. Detail the number and unit for
each item. Explain how you arrived at the dollar amounts.
You may also provide vendor quotes or price lists and
supporting documents with your application. Now, in this final
section of the presentation, we offer some application tips and
next steps. We only make grants to eligible applicants that
submit complete applications, including attachments on or
before the deadline. So here are some tips to help you do just
that. For starter,
By watching this informational video, you're off to a good
start. Become familiar with Grants.gov's workspace. There
are many good features there, such as the opportunity to
collaborate with others in creating your application, as
well as a validation process that allows you to correct
errors prior to submission. Tutorials are available on
Grants.gov. Be sure your application is complete. Check
it against the table of application components in the
Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Make sure all application components are in the proper
format and follow the correct naming conventions and submit
your application in Grants.gov well before the deadline, so you
can correct any errors and avoid any issues created by technology
challenges. It's important to get your application submitted
online to Grants.gov before the deadline. We don't accept
applications by mail or e-mail.
So, in order to submit your application on Grants.gov, you
must have an active SAM document registration and a "Unique
Entity Identifier" number. Make sure your registrations for both
of these sites are complete, your accounts are active, and
any passwords are up to date. These registrations expire
periodically, so don't wait until it's time to hit the
submit button to check on that. You should coordinate with any
other staff in your organization, such as your
authorized representative who may hold the accounts and
passwords you'll need to submit in Grants.gov Both SAM.gov and
Grants.gov websites have pretty robust help features as well as
FAQ's and information online. Now, if you run into a technical
issue with either of these sites, be sure to contact the
help desk, their help desk by phone or message; and request a
tracking number or case number or ticket number
so that you can document your issue and attempts at resolving
it. Failure to have an active SAM.gov or Grants.gov
registration by the application deadline is not an excuse for
submitting a late application, so be sure to start early. Now,
there are many components that make up the entire application.
We've talked about some of those in this presentation, but the
narrative is an essential and critical part of the package.
Peer reviewers
Museum professionals from all types of museums will be
selected by IMLS to read each application and provide
constructive comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the
proposed projects. They also base their reviews only on the
information contained in the application. So, don't assume
that a reviewer or IMLS will know something about your museum
or your proposed project to help make sure your narrative is as
clear and complete as possible.
Revisit the Notice of Funding Opportunity and follow the
narrative outline it provides. Use headings and subheadings or
numbered sections in your narrative to make it easy for
reviewers to read and follow along. Be sure to consider the
review criteria associated with each applicable section of the
narrative.
Try to avoid generalities and acronyms and jargon in your
narrative. The people who are going to review your application
are museum professionals, but they may not be totally familiar
with your particular shorthand, so make it easy for them to
understand what you mean. And an advantage to starting your
application early is that you can ask colleagues to review
everything with fresh eyes before you submit. So, ask them
to act like a reviewer who's seeing this for the first time.
We have also posted the narrative and scheduled
completion from six successful applications from 2023 and to
find these examples, go to the "Sample Applications" page on
the IMLS website. Scroll down the page to find the Museums
Empowered examples, and each sample application PDF contains
a copy of the seven-page narrative and also the scheduled
completion.
Many of these samples were identified by our peer reviewers
as good examples of well-written applications that provided all
the essential information necessary for them to review the
application. So, looking at these proposals might help
clarify your thinking. Here are a few dates to keep in mind.
Applications must be received through Grants.gov by 11:59 PM
Eastern Time on November 15th, 2023.
Your application will be time stamped by the Grants.gov
system, At the application deadline, IMLS staff will review
your application for completeness and eligibility,
and you may hear from us by e-mail if there's any problems
or questions. Next, we will select experienced and
knowledgeable peer reviewers to read your application and
provide scores and comments based on the criteria of the
NOFO. IMLS staff will examine your budget and financials and
track your track record with any past or current grants.
And we then prepare materials for the IMLS Deputy Director for
Museums and the IMLS Director. And by law, the IMLS Director is
charged with the authority and responsibility to make final
award decisions. And this program happens in July. In
early August 2024, we will notify you by e-mail of the
award decisions and provide the scores and comments created by
the reviewers. All Museums Empowered projects must be
scheduled to start
on the first day of September 2024. So, in conclusion, as you
read through the Notice of Funding Opportunity and prepare
your application, additional questions may arise before the
application deadline. We can help you with learning more
about the Museums Empowered grant program or other grant
programs at IMLS. We can help you address any specific
concerns with the various application components
or to understand the review process. Now, feel free to
contact IMLS program staff by e-mail or phone. Our contact
information is listed on the Grant Program landing page on
the IMLS website. You may also schedule a counseling call to
meet directly with the program staff and use the links found on
the Grant Program landing page to find an available time slot
on our calendar. You'll then receive an e-mail with a
calendar invite and Microsoft Teams meeting link.
Thank you very much for your time and attention today and
best of luck in preparing and submitting your grant
application to IMLS. Thank you.