Welcome to the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Office of Museum Services informational video, "Inspire
Grants for Small Museums Grant Program Applicant Information
Session." The goal of this video is to provide an overview of our
Inspire Grants for Small Museums grant program – which we call
"Inspire" for short – and the process of preparing an
application for funding.
This video is organized into seven chapters:
What is Inspire? This section explains the purpose and design
of the Inspire grant program.
What can Inspire grants fund? This section explains the types
of projects that can be funded in Inspire and the amount of
funds that can be requested.
Application components – Introduction. This section
describes the types of documents that are needed to create an
Inspire grant application.
Application Components – Organizational Profile. This
section is where we talk about your institution and make the
case for being a small museum.
Application Components – Narrative. This section provides
guidance on composing the narrative part of the
application.
Application Components – Budget. This section provides details on
the information to include in your project budget.
Application Tips and Next Steps. The concluding section provides
a few tips and next steps.
The complete set of instructions for how to prepare and submit an
Inspire grant application are found in the Notice of Funding
Opportunity, published on Grants.gov and also 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 Inspire
grant program, the types of projects that can be funded, and
the necessary application components.
You may also want to review the Inspire Notice of Funding
Opportunity before, during, and after you watch the video.
Notices of Funding Opportunities, 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.
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 below, or the links in the description box, to navigate
the chapters.
What is Inspire?
In this section, I will answer the question, "What is Inspire?"
providing information on the purpose and intent of this grant
program and who it is designed to serve.
Inspire! Grants for Small Museums is a special initiative
of the Museums for America program.
The overall goal of the program is to support activities that
strengthen the abilities of individual small museums to
serve their publics.
This might be through activities that reflect museums as active
resources for lifelong learning, as institutions important and
improving the well-being of their communities, or as good
stewards of the nation's collections.
Inspire is all about what your museum needs to better serve
your public.
Inspire projects are expected to focus on a key component of your
museum strategic plan.
IMLS wants to support your museum in priority areas that
benefit your community.
The priorities in your strategic plan may connect to a range of
activities from exhibitions, educational/interpretive
programs, digital learning resources, professional
development, institutional planning, and/or collections
management, curation, care and conservation.
These are the kinds of activities that can be funded in
the Inspire grant program.
A characteristic of a successful Inspire grant application is
making the connection between the proposed project and a key
need or challenge that faces your museum and whose resolution
is identified in your strategic plan.
To help illustrate that connection, in your grant
application we ask for a summary of your strategic plan so that
reviewers will be able to understand how your proposed
project's activities will further your institutional goals
and objectives.
The strategic plan summary is your opportunity to make a
thoughtful connection between the proposed project and your
museum's priorities.
Inspire is a grant program for museums.
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' 50 states, its Territories, or the District of
Columbia.
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;
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
November 15th, 2024; and own or use tangible objects.
Museums may be standalone organizations, or they may be
part of a larger institution such as a college, university,
Tribe, or state or local government.
Inspire is a grant program for all types of museums, and here's
a brief list of some of the types of museums that routinely
apply to this grant program.
There are a wide variety of museum disciplines and
geographic locations where museums are located across the
country,
and determining an institution's size may rest on a number of
factors.
As a result, IMLS invited applicants to consider whether
their organization is a good fit for this special initiative and
to make a case clearly within the application's Organizational
Profile document for why they are a small museum.
Reviewers will use the information provided in the
Organizational Profile to determine if the applicant made
a clear case for being a small museum.
Applicants should think about a range of attributes that
describe their organization, such as: number of staff members
and volunteers; an estimate of total person-hours worked per
week; operating budget and sources of revenue; number and
types of objects in the collection; size of facility and
property; types and numbers of audiences served; and size
relative to other organizations of the same discipline or within
the same geographic region.
What can Inspire fund?
In this section I will answer the question "What can Inspire
fund?" providing details on the types of projects and associated
goals and objectives within the Inspire grant program, as well
as offer some summary data on the number and type of Inspire
projects that were funded last year.
Inspire grants are designed to support project-based
activities, so let's take a minute to consider just 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 an end in time
and, therefore, defined scope and resources.
And a project is unique and 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, a
defined scope requiring specific resources, and which are
designed to accomplish a specific singular goal.
Keeping our focus on project-based activities, let's
look a little further at what characteristics are most often
seen in a successful Inspire application.
Institutional impact:
The project addresses a key goal identified in the institution's
strategic plan.
In depth knowledge:
The project design reflects a thorough understanding of
current practice and knowledge about the subject matter.
Project based design: The work plan consists of a set of
logical, interrelated activities tied directly to addressing the
key need or challenge.
Demonstrable Results: The project generates measurable
results that tie directly to the need or challenge it was
designed to address.
Successful projects most often exemplify all of these four
characteristics and fit well within the Inspire grant
program.
It's been our experience that unfunded applications fail to
deliver convincingly on one or more of these areas.
With that concept of "project" in mind, let's turn to the
program goal and its associated objectives.
You should align your proposed project with one of these
associated objectives.
The choice of objective should be identified clearly in the
Narrative.
Why is your decision about which objective to choose so
important?
For one thing, your application will be reviewed by museum
professionals who have experience and expertise in
these general categories, and for another, your application
will be competing against others who have chosen the same
objective.
In short, the entire review process incorporates an
assumption that your project aligns with the objective you've
identified, so it's an important choice.
So let's look at what kinds of activities a project in each of
these objectives might include.
In this, and the two slides that follow, we include a list of the
types of projects that fit within the associated objective.
A project in Lifelong Learning might include, but is not
limited to, all or part of an exhibit, program development for
all types of audiences, creating interpretive plans, media,
training for teachers, partnerships with schools or
out-of-school audiences, or program evaluation.
As you plan your project under this program objective, we
strongly recommend starting with the concept of "learner at the
center" and build around it.
Spend time really thinking through who your learners in
this project are and what their needs are.
It's not likely going to be "everybody", so who is it,
really?
What do they want to learn,
what do you want them to learn,
And what's the best way to get at it?
We'll get to the whole idea of problems and needs in a few
minutes, but a major takeaway here is to be focused in
identifying your audience and in thinking about how you are going
to serve them.
An Institutional Capacity project is likely to include
activities that contribute directly to your work to build
the capacity of your museum.
A project in institutional capacity might include, but is
not limited to, institutional planning and policy development
and the recruitment, training, and development of museum staff
and volunteers.
Our third program objective is that of Collections Stewardship
and Access, and this includes just about anything you need to
do for and with collections, except acquire them.
We are very open to projects that have multiple components
configured in ways that make sense for you.
One project might consist of cataloging, taking digital
photographs, and updating database records, while another
might combine digitization activities with rehousing.
We support conservation projects of all kinds—general, detailed,
and environmental surveys as well as treatments and
environmental improvements, and you are welcome to incorporate
aspects of training and/or collections management into
these projects if doing so makes sense for your situation.
It's important to note that in this program objective, we
encourage a step-by-step, progressive approach to
collections work, including conservation.
This means assessing needs, creating a prioritized list of
activities, and following through by doing the most
important things first.
Before we close our discussion of program objectives, I want to
mention our guidance for projects that could belong
logically in more than one.
Sometimes it's tough to choose, and you might be tempted to
think that the best strategy would be to align with more than
one—two and maybe even three.
We advise against that for several reasons.
The program objectives have different goals, and we expect
that projects align with each, will address different problems,
use different approaches, and will measure success in
achieving the intended results in different ways.
So how can you choose the best program objective for your
project?
Here are three things we suggest you try.
Think carefully about what is "in the center" of your project.
Is it a learner, or people who engage with you as a result of
your project to create a new exhibition in programming to go
with it, acquire new knowledge, develop a skill, experience a
change in attitude about the subject in your exhibit?
Or is it your institution that's in the center of your thinking?
Is your project one that will address an important need within
your museum and will it result in an enhancement of technology
or new policy or staff that has received a professional
development opportunity?
Or is your project about the collections?
Will your project results in a better managed, better cared
for, and more accessible set of objects?
A second way to go with this might be to think about who you
want to review your application.
If you apply under Lifelong Learning, we will put your
application in front of educators, learning theorists,
and professionals with deep experience in understanding how
people learn in museum environments.
Would you rather we put it in front of a combination of
experts in museum planning, website design, or policy
creation?
If that sounds right, then it may push you toward
Institutional Capacity.
And if you apply under Collection Stewardship and
Access, you can be confident that your application will be
reviewed by some combination of registrars, collections
managers, curators, conservators, or collections
information specialists.
If that seems appropriate, then this is most likely your best
choice.
Lastly, a third strategy to try might be to make a list of all
the activities you plan to carry out. Then assign each to a
program objective, and then count to see where most of these
activities occur and where most of the time and money will be
spent. That might provide your answer.
Inspire supports projects of all sizes, but there is a specific
range of funding available in this program.
For a small project, your project budget can request a
minimum of $5000 to a maximum of $25,000 in federal funds with no
cost share required.
For a large project, your project budget can request a
minimum of $25,001.00 to a maximum of $75,000 with a
one-to-one cost share required.
If you ask for less than $5000 or for more than $75,000 in
federal grant funds, your application may be rejected and
not reviewed.
Remember to keep your budget aligned to the scope and scale
of your project, including all costs necessary to complete the
proposed activities.
Cost share can take a number of forms—
among them are cash, staff time, volunteer time, third party
contributions, grants from foundations, and support from
state or local government.
Cost share cannot come from other federal sources.
In the Inspire program, small project budgets are not required
to have cost share. In the graph on the screen there are 4
examples.
The first example is of a total project budget of $25,000 with
no cost share. In the three other examples,
the IMLS request amount never exceeds $25,000, but the
applicant is choosing to include partial cost share.
Large project budgets in the Inspire program are required to
have at least a one-to-one non-federal cost share. In the
graph on the screen there are 4 examples.
In all examples the IMLS request amount and the cost share are
one-to-one.
Applicants can choose to have more than the required
one-to-one cost share
for large projects.
The number of applications received, and the number of
awards made can vary from year to year.
Here is a snapshot of our most recent application and award
cycle.
In FY24, IMLS made 78 Inspire awards with a total of $3.32
million in federal funds.
We received 234 Inspire applications last year,
resulting in 33% of those applications being funded.
About 44% of the Inspire awards were for project supporting the
Lifelong Learning objective, 39% of the projects supported the
Collections Stewardship and Access objective, and 17% of the
project supported the Institutional Capacity
objective.
In this slide, you can see how many projects were funded across
the two funding levels – large projects and small projects –
organized by program objective.
And lastly, you can see that we supported an equal number of
small and large projects in FY24.
In this section, we will introduce the components of an
Inspire grant application, and provide an overview about the
required, conditionally required, and supporting
documents.
The Inspire Notice of Funding Opportunity (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.
Aside from the SF-424S and the IMLS Museum Program Information
Form, which are completed in the Grants.gov workspace, all
application components must be submitted as PDF documents.
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 5-page limit for the
narrative.
If you exceed the page limit specified in the Notice of
Funding Opportunity, we must remove the extras before your
application goes out for review.
The second category of application components is that
of the conditionally required documents.
Some applications must include one, two, or even all four of
these, and it's your job to figure out which are required
for yours.
If you are applying as a nonprofit, then you must include
your proof of nonprofit status issued by the Internal Revenue
Service.
We will not accept a letter of state sales tax exemption as
proof of nonprofit status.
If you are using a federally negotiated indirect cost rate in
your budget, then you must include a copy of your final
rate agreement.
If you will create digital products during the course of
your project, then you must complete and submit a digital
products plan.
If you are requesting support for conservation treatment, then
you must include detailed condition reports and/or formal
conservation treatment proposals.
Just like the required documents, omission of even one
might result in your applications rejection's.
Please note that the term "digital product" includes: (1)
digitized and born-digital content, resources, and assets;
and (2) software.
If you are creating any of these types of materials, you must
include the form with your application.
The third group of application components is supporting
documents, and here is a partial list of examples.
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, they should lend support to your project justification,
work plan, and intended results that you've already spelled out
in your application narrative.
For example, have you identified a partner whose involvement is
key to the project's success?
If so, a letter of support or commitment would reassure
reviewers that they are 'on board' and the project will
succeed.
Pictures can help give reviewers – who may not be familiar with
your institution, programs, collections, or community – a
better idea of what you're describing within your
narrative.
Vendor quotes or equipment specifications show you've done
some of the legwork and getting appropriate estimates for your
project cost.
We recommend that you be respectful of your reviewers'
time and avoid including excessive extra material.
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 will focus
on these application components, the Organizational profile, the
narrative, and the budget.
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 will go over the Organizational Profile and
what you need to include on each page of this required document.
We ask that you create a two-page document describing
your organization.
On the first page, we ask that you address your organization's
mission or statement of purpose;
your organization's governance structure, including if your
museum is an organizational unit under a larger "parent"
organization (for instance, if the applicant is an art museum
under a university) and the level of support provided by the
parent organization;
your service area; and a brief history of your organization.
On page two of this document, we ask that you describe your
organization's size using the range of attributes that we
shared earlier in the presentation.
This is where you make your case for being a small museum.
In this section, we will go over the questions you will need to
answer in your project Narrative and offer details on the review
criteria associated with each section:
Project Justification, Project Work Plan, and Project Results.
Now let's talk about the Narrative of your proposal.
You have five 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.
What need, problem, or challenge will your project address, and
how was it identified?
Describe how you have used demographic information,
economic circumstances, condition assessments, and other
relevant data from reliable sources to define the need,
problem, or challenge and develop the scope for the
project.
Who is the primary audience for your project and how have they
been involved in the planning?
The primary audience refers to those who will be most
immediately and positively affected by your project.
Identify the number of individuals in the primary
audience, or in each primary audience, if you have more than
one.
Who are the ultimate beneficiaries for this project?
Beneficiaries refers to those who are likely to be aided in
the long term by your project.
They may or may not be the same as your primary audience.
Identify the number of individuals who will benefit
from your project in the long term, if reliable and defensible
counts are possible.
Otherwise, describe the characteristics of the
beneficiaries you expect to be served eventually by your
project.
In step six of the Notice of Funding Opportunity, under Peer
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.
You will see that they correspond directly with the
prompts you were given to write your narrative.
Because the need, problem, or challenge is foundational in
your application, keep these points in mind.
The federal government wants its investment to result in
something getting better.
As you define your need, problem, or challenge,
articulate what will get better as a result of your project as
precisely as possible.
Will someone learn something, develop a skill, change an
attitude?
Will an institutional policy be created to help move your
institution forward?
Will staff receive professional development opportunities?
Will collections be better cared for?
Will their lifespan be extended?
Will access to your collections and the information surrounding
them be expanded?
Identify why it is important that this particular change
happens.
Hone your problem definition carefully in clear, succinct
terms.
Gather and present data that support your problem definition.
Project Work Plan.
If the Project Justification section was the "why," the
Project Work Plan section is where you identify the "who,
what, when, and how." Who will do what activities, when, and
using what resources.
You should explain how you will track your progress toward
achieving your attended results and what you'll do if you need
to correct course.
We also ask you to think about risks that are inherent in your
particular project and tell us how you've taken that into
account in your planning.
I'll say more about this in a few minutes.
Reviewers will evaluate your proposal on how well your
activities are informed by appropriate theory and practice,
and whether the goals, assumptions, or risks are
clearly stated.
Reviewers want to see that the team you've put together has the
experience and skills necessary to complete the work
successfully, and whether your schedule is realistic and
achievable.
They'll also be looking at whether the time, personnel, and
financial resources identified are appropriate for the scope
and scale of the project.
They will consider if you've described a clear methodology
for tracking your progress and adjusting course when necessary.
Your work plan will be built on activities, so it's important to
be clear about what an activity is.
An activity is something that someone does.
It has a beginning and an end (just like projects) and you
know when it's finished because it doesn't need to be done
anymore.
It is no longer on your To-Do List.
An activity is not a goal, a result, or an outcome.
Rather, it is something you do as part of striving to achieve
those.
Aim for a reasonable level of granularity in identifying your
activities.
We also ask that you think about risks that are inherent in your
project and to tell us how you've taken that into account
in your planning.
Think of it as answering the question, "what if?" There is no
checklist of risks, but every project has them.
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 and think about what could go wrong.
Focus on the ones where your experience (your own or that of
a group) tells you, "yes that could happen," and identify
steps you would take in response.
IMLS knows things go differently than expected.
We just want you to prepare by identifying implementable
options.
Here are some examples of risk that might be a part of a
project for which you might seek Inspire funding:
A project may be structured around interns, who will be
selected and trained according to well thought out processes.
What will happen if one or more interns drops out?
What's the plan for replacing them mid-project?
A project might involve rehousing collections into new
museum-quality collection storage
furniture might run into delays in preparing the space or in the
delivery of the cabinets.
What happens to the collection items then?
How will the institution ensure that they remain safe and
secure?
Project Results.
The third section of your Narrative should be devoted to
articulating your project's intended results.
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, and it will be
diminished or eliminated altogether.
We ask you to tell us what data you will collect and report in
order to measure your project's success.
If your project will generate tangible products (and most do),
here's the opportunity to describe them and make the case
that they will be useful.
And last, but not least, we ask that you tell us how you will
sustain the benefit of the project.
How will this improvement that you propose to make continue
once your grant is over?
Reviewers will give us their opinions on how well you've
designed a feasible plan for collecting and reporting data;
how likely the improvements that you propose will be realized;
will the tangible products you plan to create be accessible to
the primary audience you identified; and whether your
plan for sustaining the benefits of the project are reasonable
and practical.
We often hear that defining intended results and success
measures is challenging for applicants, so it's worth
spending a bit of time on this here.
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 someone will learn something, how will you know?
If your problem is related to segments of your community being
better able to work together, how will you know when that has
been achieved?
If collections will be better cared for, how will you be sure
and how will you measure "better?"
If you're digitizing to expand accessibility, how will you know
when you've done it?
All of your results should tie back to your need, problem, or
challenge.
You may well experience tangential benefits and or
positive outcomes, but make sure you identify them as "in
addition to" and not "instead of" your original intended
results.
Reviewers are likely to see that as a disconnect.
So to recap: your narrative has three sections—Project
Justification, Project Work Plan, and Project Results, and
you have 5 pages for it.
The sections are all equally important.
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 it and understand it.
In this section, we will 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.
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 costs that will be to
charged grant funds, as well as those that will be supported by
cost share, if applicable.
In-kind contributions to cost share may include the value of
services (e.g., donated volunteer or consultant time),
or equipment donated to the project 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,
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.
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 Regulation, or CFR,
sometimes referred to as "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."
Using the 2 CFR 200 as a basis, we've developed a short list of
allowable costs that are most common to Inspire projects.
See page 18 of the Inspire Notice of Funding Opportunity,
which includes a partial list of the most common examples of
allowable costs.
This short list of allowable costs is also shown on this
slide.
These costs may be part of what you ask IMLS to pay for with
federal funds or what you will pay for as part of your cost
share.
The rules about allowability apply equally to grant funds as
well as cost share.
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 Inspire Notice of Funding Opportunity, we also provide an
abbreviated list of unallowable costs.
These are also listed on this slide.
Unallowable costs may not be part of what you asked 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.
As you prepare your application, it's a good idea to compare your
list of proposed expenses against these lists of allowable
and unallowable costs and against the appropriate set of
cost principles.
If after that you have specific questions, please contact us and
we'll be happy to help.
In addition to the IMLS budget form, you will also prepare a
Budget Justification.
This is an opportunity to provide a more detailed
narrative format, an explanation or justification for the project
cost.
The Budget Justification should be written to follow the cost
categories
in the IMLS Budget form. In the justification, you will identify
each expense and show the method of cost computation used to
determine each dollar amount, including any that you may have
consolidated or summarized on the IMLS Budget form.
In other words, please show your math.
For example, in the section Salaries and Wages, you should
identify each person whose salary or wages will be paid
with IMLS funds or by cost share, provide their names, and
describe their role in the project.
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 this section for supplies, materials, and equipment, you
should list each type of supply, material, and equipment 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 the dollar amounts.
You may also provide vendor quotes or price lists as
supporting documents with your application.
In this 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 that.
Start early.
You've already done that by participating in this webinar.
Become familiar with Grants.gov's Workspace.
It has many good features, including upfront validation
which allows you to correct errors prior to submission, and
the opportunity to collaborate with others in creating your
application.
Consider starting with the Workspace overview and check out
the tutorials.
Do your background research. Make it easy for reviewers to
see that you are up to date and know what you're talking about.
Be sure your application is complete.
Check it against the Table of Application Components and the
Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Make sure all application components are in the proper
format and follow the correct naming conventions.
Submit to Grants.gov early so you can correct any errors and
avoid any trauma 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.
In order to register with Grants.gov, you must have an
active SAM.gov registration and Unique Entity Identifier Number.
So make sure your registrations for both of these sites are
complete, 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 you'll need to submit.
Both the 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 to their help desks and request a tracking,
case, or ticket number in order to document your issue and
attempts at resolving it.
Failure to have active SAM.gov or Grants.gov registrations by
the application deadline is not an excuse for submitting a late
application, so, again, start early.
There are many components to the application, and the Narrative
as 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 and critical 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 Inspire Notice the Funding Opportunity,
and follow the narrative outline it provides.
Be sure to consider the review criteria associated with each
section of the Narrative.
Use headings, subheadings, or numbered sections in your
Narrative to make it easy for reviewers to read.
Avoid generalities, acronyms, and jargon.
The people who will review your application are museum
professionals, but they may not be totally familiar with your
particular field's shorthand.
Make it easy for them to understand what you mean.
An advantage to start on 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.
Here are a few important dates relating to Inspire
applications.
Applications must be received through Grants.gov by 11:59 PM
Eastern Time on November 15th, 2024.
The date is non negotiable.
The time stamp is auto-generated by the Grants.gov system, and we
have no ability to override it.
We will say this repeatedly, to start early and submit your
application early.
That way, if you encounter a difficulty of any kind when
submitting your proposal, you'll have some time to resolve the
problem and resubmit.
After the application deadline,
IMLS staff will review your application for completeness and
eligibility, and you will hear from us via e-mail 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 Inspire 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.
By law, the IMLS Director is charged with the authority and
responsibility to make final award decisions, and this
typically happens in July.
In early August to 2025, we will notify you by email of the award
decisions and provide the scores and comments created by the
reviewers.
Inspire projects must be scheduled to start on the first
day of September 2025.
As you read through the NOFO and prepare your application,
additional questions may arise before the application deadline.
We can help you with learning more about the Inspire Grant
Program or other grant programs at IMLS, address any specific
concerns with the various application components, or help
you understand the review process.
You may contact IMLS program staff by e-mail 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 links found on the grant program landing page to find an
available time slot on our calendars.
You will then receive an email with a calendar invite and a
Microsoft Teams meeting link.
Thank you very much for your interest in IMLS and the Inspire
Grants for Small Museums funding opportunity.
I hope you found the information in this applicant webinar
helpful.
Good luck and we look forward to seeing your application in
November.