Hello and welcome to the Institute of Museum and Library
Services Informational Video, "The 21st Century Museum
Professionals Grant Program Applicant Information Session."
My name is Mark Isaksen, one of the program staff in the Office
of Museum Services at IMLS, and I'll be narrating this
presentation.
The goal of this video is to provide an overview of our 21st
Century Museum Professionals grant program, referred to as
21MP, and the process of preparing an application for
funding.
The video is organized into six chapters.
What is 21MP?
This introductory section explains the purpose and design
of the grant program.
What can 21MP grants fund?
This section provides detail on the types of projects funded in
the grant program and the amount of funds that can be requested.
Application Components is an overview of the types of
documents that are needed to create a grant application.
The Application Components Narrative section provides
guidance on composing the narrative part of the
application.
The Budget section describes what to include in your project
budget, and finally we have a section on application tips and
next steps.
The complete set of instructions for how to prepare and submit a
21MP 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 to prepare your application.
To get the most out of this video, we recommend that you
watch it in its entirety.
This will give you an understanding of the 21MP Grant
program, the types of projects that can be funded, and the
necessary application components.
You may also want to review the 21MP Notice of Funding
Opportunity before, during, or after you watch the video.
Notices of Funding Opportunity, also known as NOFOs, are
documents that detail the requirements of each of our
grant programs.
All of our NOFOs can be found at imls.gov/grants and as you
navigate the application process,
you can use this video as a reference tool.
If you'd like to skip to a specific section, please use the
time bar, or the links in the description box, to navigate the
chapters.
In this section, we'll answer the question: "What is the 21MP
Grant Program?" —
providing information on the purpose and intent of this
program and who it is designed to serve.
The 21st Century Museum Professional Grant Program
supports projects that offer professional development to the
current museum workforce, train and recruit future museum
professionals, and identify and share effective practices in
museum workforce education and training.
This program's purpose is to develop and enhance a diverse
workforce of museum professionals to anticipate and
serve the needs of museums in their local communities.
Critical thinking and problem solving,
Communication, collaboration, and creativity
are essential 21st century skills that are vital to success
in a global economy.
Museums are trusted institutions that are well equipped to build
those skills.
Now IMLS recognizes the important role of strong local
and regional networks in providing peer-to-peer learning,
training, and mentoring opportunities for the museum
workforce.
Partnerships among museums, museum serving organizations,
and institutions of higher education are vital to expanding
career pathways for broad groups of museum professionals
throughout a city, county, state, region, or the nation.
The 21MP program encourages applications from museum
associations, museum studies programs and institutions of
higher education, and museums that serve as essential parts of
the professional learning and training environment.
So applicants to the 21MP program may include museums
that, as I said, serve as key parts of the professional
learning and training environment.
And museums, like all applicants, must meet certain
requirements to be eligible for IMLS funding.
Your organization, first of all, must be located in one of the
United States' 50 states, 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.
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.
Museums must have at least one full time or equivalent
professional staff person, either paid or unpaid.
Museums must have a physical location that you own or
operate, and museums must have been open to the public for at
least 120 days in the year prior to the application deadline.
And museums should own or use tangible objects.
Museums may be stand-alone organizations, or they may be
part of a larger institution such as a college or university,
or tribe or state or local government.
Now, the 21 MP program is also open to any organization or
association that engages in activities designed to advance
the well-being of museums and the museum profession.
Applicants in this eligibility category may be national,
regional, state, or discipline-based associations or
related organizations that primarily serve the museum
field.
These organizations, like all applicants, must meet certain
requirements to be eligible for funding.
You must be located in the US,
its 50 states, territories or the District of Columbia, and
your organization must be a unit of state or local government, or
a private nonprofit organization with tax exempt status.
And finally, the 21 MP program is open to institutions of
higher education.
Now, this includes public and nonprofit universities who may
offer museum studies and related programs that support the
training of museum professionals.
And these programs may be in the form of undergraduate, graduate,
or professional or continuing education.
And like the other categories of eligibility, your organization
must be located in one of the United States' 50 states,
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.
In this next section, we will answer the question: "What can
21MP grants fund?"— and provide details on the types of projects
and associated goals within the 21st Century Museum
Professionals Grant program.
Like so many of the IMLS grant programs, the 21MP grants are
intended to support project-based activities.
So let's take a minute to consider 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 in time and
therefore a defined scope and resources.
And 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.
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.
They should have a defined scope requiring specific resources,
and these resources are designed to accomplish a specific
singular goal.
So with a solid grounding and project based design.
Your project should also contain a few additional key
characteristics that are essential in the 21MP program.
The first is strategic partnerships.
Your project should involve partnerships that build career
pathways and strengthen professional networks beyond a
single institution.
Next is in-depth knowledge.
Your project's design should reflect a thorough understanding
of relevant theory and current practice in workforce training
and professional development for the museum field.
Third, your project should have an inclusive approach, that is,
you should employ inclusive and equitable recruitment and
selection strategies to reach your primary audience.
Finally, a career focus.
That is, your project should engage museum staff, leadership,
and volunteers at any stage of career development.
Successful projects that exemplify all of these
characteristics are likely to fit well within the 21 MP grant
program.
Now, if your project involves strategic partnerships,
incorporates in depth knowledge as an inclusive approach, and a
focus on career development, you're most likely in alignment
with the purpose of this grant program.
Next, you'll need to select one of the grant program goals and
associated objectives that most closely connects to your
proposed activities.
The first goal in the 21MP grant program is to support the
professional development of the current workforce.
Now this goal is further detailed in two associated
objectives, and you should select the one that most closely
aligns with the primary focus of your project.
Objective 1 is to develop new or enhanced professional
development and training programs for the museum
workforce.
This objective applies to any project that is creating a new
training program or expanding and enhancing an existing
program with a primary audience of the current museum workforce.
And that primary audience can be for people at any stage of their
career, maybe early career folks, emerging professionals,
experienced senior.
Objective 1.2 is to support the assessment and evaluation of
training and professional development programs to help
identify and share effective practices.
Now, this objective is essential for those projects that will be
conducting rigorous evaluation and assessment of training
programs, to analyze and distill those results, and share
findings with relevant and interested sectors of the museum
field and professional training and higher education ecosystem.
The second goal in the 21MP grant program is to recruit and
train future museum professionals, in other words,
the future workforce.
So, supporting goal 2 on the future workforce of museum
professionals are three associated objectives.
You should select one of these, the one that most closely aligns
with your project activities.
Objective 2.1 is to expand pathways into the museum field
by adapting higher education programs to be more responsive
to the needs of the 21st century museum workforce.
This objective supports the active engagement of museum
studies programs and similar programs in higher education to
develop, test, or expand approaches to career training in
the museum sector.
Objective 2.2 is to recruit future museum professionals from
diverse and underrepresented backgrounds through paid
internships, mentoring, and fellowship opportunities.
This objective aligns with projects that focus on the
recruitment, placement, and retention of people entering the
museum field and may involve activities such as paid
internships, mentorship opportunities, or other
activities that foster the connections between training and
professional development and higher education students, and
job opportunities in the museum field.
Objective 2.3 is to support assessment and evaluation of
recruitment, training, and higher education programs to
identify and share effective practices.
This objective is essential for those projects that will be
conducting rigorous evaluation and assessment of programs
focused on the future workforce.
This can be focused on evaluating new programs or
conducting retrospective or longitudinal analysis of
existing programs, as well as sharing findings with relevant
and interested sectors of the museum field and professional
training and higher education ecosystem.
Now, regardless of the program goals selected, all 21MP project
budgets must stay within a specific range of funding in
this grant program.
Your project budget can request a minimum of $100,000 to a
maximum of $500,000 in federal funds.
Keep your budget aligned to the scope and scale of your project,
and include all necessary costs to complete the proposed
activities. In this grant program,
all project budgets are required to have at least a one-to-one
nonfederal cost share.
Cost share can take several forms such as in-kind
contributions like staff time, volunteer time, as well as third
party contributions such as grants from foundations and
support from state or local government.
Cost share cannot come from other federal sources.
Now, here's an example of a recently funded 21MP project.
This project supports goal one of 21MP with an emphasis on
supporting the current workforce.
The Science Museum of Minnesota received an award of $344,000 to
support transformative change towards inclusion, diversity,
equity, and access among Upper Midwest museums by creating a
durable community of practice. Using a field-tested model of
professional development,
the museum will collaborate with 20 small, underserved museums
across Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and
Wisconsin to bring together staff and researchers virtually
and in person over a period of two years to learn about
theories, methods, and tools related to equity and find ways
to adapt these ideas to their museums and professional
networks.
We've also made this project available as a sample
application, with the narrative and schedule available as a PDF
on the IMLS website.
Go to "Search Awarded Grants" and search by log number to find
this example.
Here's an example of a recently funded 21MP project that
supports Goal 2 of the 21MP program with an emphasis on
creating career pathways for the future workforce.
The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in
Philadelphia received an award of $116,000 to develop a pilot
workforce training program for conservation technicians.
The project responds to an identified need to expand career
pathways and conservation for professionals without a graduate
degree.
CCAHA is partnering with Drexel University's Lenfest Center for
Cultural Partnerships to connect undergraduate students with
experiential training opportunities working on Drexel
collections as conservation technicians.
Again, we've made this available as a sample application with a
narrative and schedule of completion
available as a PDF on the IMLS website.
Go to "Search Awarded Grants" and search by log number to find
this example.
The number of applications received and the number of
awards made can vary from year to year and
in the most recent application cycle, we received 49
applications requesting $14 million in funding.
And from these applications we selected 8 projects to receive a
total of $2,000,000.
On the IMLS website, you can use that "Search Awarded Grants"
function to explore our archive of grants that we've awarded in
past years.
And you can search by a variety of criteria: institution name,
location, or keyword.
And you'll get basic information about each award, including the
amount of federal funds awarded, and a brief description of the
proposed activities and expected results for each project.
In this section, we will introduce the components of a
21MP grant application and provide an overview about the
required, conditionally required, and supporting
documents.
The 21MP Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, includes a
complete list of all the application components.
Most of these components are created by applicants and saved
as a PDF for uploading as part of your application package in
Grants.gov.
The Table of Application Components lists which
application components are required as well as those that
are conditionally required.
For example, some components are included in the application
depending on the type of applicant or the type of
project.
These are the required documents.
All applications must include the documents listed here.
Omission of even just one might result in your application's
rejection.
Also important to note, there is a 7-page limit for the
narrative.
If you exceed the page limit, we must remove the extra pages
before your application goes out for review.
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.
If you are applying as a nonprofit organization, then you
must include your proof of nonprofit status.
The letter issued by the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service.
We will not accept the letter of state sales tax exemption as
proof of nonprofit status.
And if you're using a federally negotiated indirect cost rate in
your budget, you must include a copy of your final rate
agreement.
And finally, if you will create digital products during the
course of your project, then you must complete and submit a
digital products plan.
Please note that the term "digital product" includes
digitized and born-digital content, resources, and assets,
as well as software.
So, if you're creating any of these types of materials, you
should include the digital products plan with your
application, and reach out to a program officer if you have any
questions about whether or not to include these in your
application.
The third group of application components is supporting
documents, and supporting documents are optional.
You may submit some or none.
Include only those items that will supplement your proposal.
This is not the place to introduce brand new information.
Rather, it's an opportunity to provide context with documents
that support your Project Justification, Project Work
Plan, and Project Results.
For example, if you've identified a partner or
consultant whose involvement is key to the project success,
you'll want to include a letter of support or commitment because
that would go a long way to reassuring reviewers that the
partner organization is "on board" with your project and
there's a high likelihood of success in the partnership.
We recommend that you be respectful of your reviewers'
time and avoid any temptation to include hundreds of pages of
extraneous material here.
Being judicious really does work to your benefit, as supporting
documents can make or break an application.
Include what is important, helpful, and directly relevant
to your project and stop there.
In the following sections of this presentation, we're going
to focus on these application components: the Narrative and
the Budget.
You can go to the Notice of Funding Opportunity for complete
instructions on how to prepare and complete all of the
application components.
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 7 pages to cover 3 very important issues, and the Notice
of Funding opportunity provides guidance on what the Narrative
should cover.
First is the Project Justification.
And in this section of the narrative, we ask you to tell us
which 21MP goal or objective your project will address.
What need, problem, or challenge will your project address, and
how is it identified?
Who is the primary audience for your project?
Who are the ultimate beneficiaries for this project?
And how will the museum workforce, or any associated
professional networks, benefit from your project?
This is your opportunity to share about how your project
will involve strategic partnerships that go beyond your
own institution.
In the Notice of Funding Opportunity, under review
criteria, you will find a list of questions that reviewers are
asked to consider when they review your proposal.
It's a good idea to refer to these as you craft your
narrative to be certain you're providing reviewers clear, solid
information.
And you'll see that these review criteria correspond fairly
directly with the prompts you're given to write your narrative.
Reviewers really want to see that your project connects to
the goals of the 21MP program.
They want to understand how relevant data and best practice
has been used to describe the need, problem, or challenge.
They want to know that you have appropriately defined the
primary audience and beneficiaries for your proposed
project.
And they really want to know that this is going to address
the needs of the workforce and have the potential to build
career pathways and strengthen networks beyond a single
institution.
So, one of the prompts in the Project Justification section of
the narrative is the identification of the need,
problem, or challenge your project addresses.
It's a foundational part of the application, so keep these
points in mind.
The federal government wants its investment to result in
something getting better.
So as you define your need, problem, or challenge, you want
to articulate what will get better as a result of your
project, and describe it as precisely as possible.
Will someone learn something, develop a skill, or change an
attitude?
What's going to happen?
And you want to identify why it's important that this
particular change happens, and really hone your problem
definition carefully in clear and succinct terms, and gather
and present data or evidence that supports your problem
definition.
Next is the project work plan.
So if the project justification section was the "why" part, the
project work plan is where you identify the "who, what, when
and how."
Who will do the activities, when are they going to do them, and
what resources are going to be needed?
How are you going to recruit and select participants from the
primary audience?
How are you going to track progress towards achieving your
results?
They also ask about risks, some that are inherent in your
particular project, and tell us how you've taken that into
account in your planning.
And again, this is a list of questions from the Notice of
Funding Opportunity that reviewers are asked to consider
when they look at the work plan.
They will want to know how your proposed activities are informed
by relevant theory and practice in museum professional
development and training.
They want to know that you've clearly stated the goals,
assumptions, and potential risks that have informed the design of
your project.
And that you've discussed how the service providers and
consultants, and others, have the skills necessary to get the
results you want from your project.
And that you've allocated adequate staff time and
resources to completing the work.
And that you developed a method for tracking progress and making
changes where necessary.
So when we ask you to think about risks, the risks that are
inherent in your particular project, we want you to tell us
how you've taken those risks into account in your planning.
So think of it 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.
So look at your activities.
Think about what could go wrong.
Focus on the ones where your experience tells you, yeah, that
could happen, and identify steps that you would take in response.
Now, we know that things will go differently than expected and we
just want you to be prepared by identifying a few options that
are likely to be implemented.
So here are some examples of risk.
Projects may be dependent upon fundraising to generate cost
share.
But it's not complete by the time the application is
submitted.
So, what will the institution do if the money is not available
when the project gets underway?
Or,
a project might plan to conduct listening sessions with staff.
And what if the staff feedback suggests that different needs,
issues, or challenges should be a priority for training?
Maybe this project is structured around supporting interns from a
university.
So what happens if one or more interns drops out?
What's the plan for replacing them mid-project?
Or maybe you're working with a consultant and they drop out.
So again, what do you do?
What's likely to happen?
So the final part of the Project Narrative is the Results
section.
And in this third section of your Narrative, it should be
devoted to articulating your project's intended results.
The 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 Justification
will be addressed directly, and it will be diminished or
eliminated, or some something will change as a result.
Now, we ask you to tell us what data you will collect and report
in order to measure your project's success.
And if your project will generate some tangible products,
here's the opportunity to describe them, and let us know
how you will make the products accessible and available to the
primary audience.
And last but not least, we ask that you tell us how you will
sustain the benefits of the project and how this improvement
that you propose to make will continue once your grant is
over.
Again, here's a list of the review questions that reviewers
will consider when they're reading your narrative.
All of your results should really tie back to your need,
problem, or challenge.
We often hear that defining intended results and success
measures is a challenging part of the process for applicants.
So it's worth spending a bit of time on this.
Let's think back to the questions we referenced a couple
of slides ago when we talked about defining the need,
problem, or challenge that your project is addressing.
If you said some someone will learn something, how are you
going to know?
And if you want to advance equity in the museum field, say,
how will that be measured?
The focus on results and measuring success in meaningful
ways is not new and there's been a tremendous amount of work done
on ways to measure success.
So we encourage you to consider using a tool like a logic model
or an outcomes-based evaluation and methodology to explain your
intended results and your plan for achieving them.
So to recap, your Narrative has three sections, the Project
Justification, the Project Work Plan, and Project Results, and
you have 7 pages for this section.
Each of the parts of the narrative are equally important,
so write clearly, address what we ask you to address, and keep
an eye on those review criteria.
We're telling you here exactly what the reviewers will look
for, so make it easy for them to find the information they need
in the narrative that you submit with your application.
In this section, we'll 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.
This is the part of the application where you specify
all the costs associated with your proposed project, and the
Budget consists of two required components, the IMLS Budget Form
and the Budget Justification.
The Budget form is a fillable PDF.
It accommodates up to three years of project activities and
expenses.
The budget should include the project costs that will be
charged to grant funds as well as those to be supported by cost
share.
In-kind contributions to cost share may include: the value of
services, such as volunteer staff time or consultant time;
or equipment donated to the project, and those cost share or
other kinds of expenses must have occurred between the
authorized start and end dates of your project.
All the listed items, whether supported by grant funds or cost
share, must be necessary to accomplish project objectives,
allowable according to the applicable federal cost
principles, and auditable and incurred during the award period
of performance.
The budget form can be downloaded directly from the
IMLS website.
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 is specified in the Code of
Federal Regulations, known as CFR, sometimes referred to as 2
CFR 200, which is the specific part of federal regulations
known as the Uniform Administrative Requirements,
Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards.
Using 2 CFR 200 as a basis, we've developed a short list of
allowable costs that are most commonly seen in grant
applications at IMLS.
These costs may be part of what you ask IMLS to pay for with
federal funds or what you'll pay for as part of your cost share.
They can be on either part of the budget.
The rules on allowability apply equally to grant funds as well
as cost share.
And 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 according to the
federal regulations in 2 CFR 200.
In the NOFO, we also provide an abbreviated list of unallowable
costs, which are shown on this slide.
Unallowable costs may not be part of what you ask IMLS to pay
for, nor can they be part of what you will pay for as part of
your cost share.
In fact, unallowable expenses can't show up anywhere in your
proposal.
So, as you prepare your application, it's a good idea to
compare your list of proposed expenses against the list of
allowable and unallowable costs, as well as looking at the cost
principles themselves.
If, after that, you have specific questions, please
contact us and we'll be happy to help.
In addition to the budget form, you'll also prepare a Budget
Justification, and this is your opportunity to provide, in a
more detailed, narrative format, an explanation or justification
for the project costs.
The Budget Justification should be written to follow the cost
categories in the IMLS Budget Form, and in the Justification,
you're going to identify each expense and show the method of
cost computation used to determine each dollar amount,
including any that you may have consolidated and summarized on
the Budget Form.
In other words, this is the place to show your math.
For example, in the section on salaries and wages, you should
identify each person whose salary or wage will be paid with
IMLS funds or included in cost share, provide their name,
describe their role in the project, and document the method
of cost computation by including the base salary or wages for
each person, and the percentage of time each person is allocated
to the project activities, which may be shown as a percentage of
time, number of days, or number of hours.
If cost share is being provided by unpaid volunteers, explain
how you arrived at the dollar amount used to represent the
value of their services.
In the section on supplies, materials and equipment, for
example, you should list each type of supply material, or
equipment that you propose to purchase or provide as cost
share for the project.
Detail the number and unit cost for each item, and explain how
you arrived at the dollar amounts.
You may also provide vendor quotes or price lists as
supporting documents with your application.
In this final section of our presentation, we offer some
application tips and next steps.
We can 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.
Start the process early. By watching this video,
you're off to a good start.
Become familiar with Grants.gov's workspace.
It has many good features, such as the opportunity to
collaborate with others in creating your application, as
well as a validation process that allows you to correct
errors.
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 finally, 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
through Grants.gov before the deadline.
IMLS does not accept applications by mail or email,
and in order to submit your application in Grants.gov, you
must have an active SAM.gov registration and a Unique Entity
Identifier Number.
Make sure your registrations for both of these sites are complete
and your accounts are active, and that any necessary passwords
are current.
These registrations expire periodically, so do not wait
until it's time to hit the submit button to check on them.
You should coordinate with any other staff members, such as
your Authorized Organization Representative, who may hold the
accounts and passwords that you're going to need to submit
the application in Grants.gov.
Both SAM.gov and Grants.gov websites have robust help
features and FAQs.
If you run into technical issues with either of these sites, you
should reach out directly to their help desks.
And request a tracking number, case number, or ticket number in
order to document your issue and attempts at resolving it.
Failure to have a SAM.gov or Grants.gov registration that's
active and in place by the application deadline is not an
excuse for submitting a late application.
So again, be sure to start early in this process.
There are many components that make up the entire application,
and 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.
So, to make sure your Narrative is as clear and complete as
possible, revisit the NOFO and follow the Narrative outline it
provides.
Use headings, subheadings, or numbered sections in your
narrative to make it easy for reviewers to read.
Be sure to consider the review criteria associated with each
section of the narrative.
Avoid generalities, acronyms, and jargon.
The people who are going to read 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.
Another advantage to starting your application early is that
you can ask a colleague to review everything with fresh
eyes before you submit.
Ask them to act like a reviewer who's seeing this for the first
time and get some constructive feedback before you submit it in
Grants.gov.
Here are a few important dates relating to 21MP applications.
Applications must be received through Grants.gov by 11:59 PM
Eastern Time on November 15th, 2024.
Your application will be time stamped by the Grants.gov
system.
After the application deadline, IMLS staff will review your
application for completeness and eligibility, and you will hear
from us via email if there are any problems.
Next, we will select experienced and knowledgeable peer reviewers
to read your applications and provide scores and comments
based on the criteria outlined in the Notice of Funding
Opportunity.
IMLS staff will examine your budget, your financials, and
your track record with past and current grants.
We then prepare materials for the IMLS Deputy Director for
Museums and the IMLS Director, and, by law, it is the IMLS
Director who is charged with the authority and responsibility to
make final award decisions. In early June,
we will notify you by email of the award decisions and provide
the scores and comments created by the reviewers.
All 21MP projects must be scheduled to start on the first
day of July 2025.
And in conclusion, as you read through the NOFO and prepare
your application, additional questions may arise before the
application deadline.
And we can help you with learning more about the 21MP
grant program or other grant programs at IMLS, as well as
address any specific concerns you may have with the various
application components or help you understand the review
process.
So you may contact IMLS program staff by email or phone.
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 program staff.
Use the link found on the grant program landing page to find an
available time slot on our calendar.
You will then receive an email with a calendar invite and
Microsoft Teams meeting link.
Thank you again for listening to our presentation and best of
luck to you in preparing and submitting your IMLS grant
application.