Hello and welcome to the Institute of Museum and Library
Services informational video, "Museums Empowered Grant Program
Applicant Information Session."
My name is Mark Isaksen and I'm one of the program staff in the
Office of Museum Services 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 and the process of preparing an
application for funding.
The video is organized into six chapters.
The first is "What is Museums Empowered?" and this is an
introductory section and explains the purpose and design
of the grant program.
Next is "What can Museums Empowered Grants Fund?" and in
this section we'll give some detail on the types of projects
funded in this grant program and the amount of funds that can be
requested.
Next is the Application Components and Introduction
where we describe the types of documents that are needed to
create a grant application.
Then we'll go into the "Application Components,
Narrative" to talk about guidance on composing the
narrative part of the application.
And finally, in the Application Components, we'll talk about the
budget and what you need to include in your project budget.
The final chapter is "Application Tips and Next
Steps."
And in this section, we give you a few tips and talk about next
steps.
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 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, and 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, also known as
NOFOs, N-O-F-O, are documents that detail the requirements of
each of our grant programs.
All of the NOFOs can be found at imls.gov/grants.
As you navigate the application process, you can use this video
as a reference.
And 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.
Next we're going to talk about "What is Museums Empowered?" and
provide information on the purpose and intent of this grant
program and who it is designed to serve.
Museums Empowered is a special initiative of the Museums for
America grant program. Like MFA, our Museums for America program,
this Museums Empowered 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 systemic change or organizational growth within
your museum.
These projects are expected to involve multiple levels of
staff, leadership, volunteers, and a set of logical,
interrelated activities tied to directly 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's a priority for
your museum and hopefully something that will ultimately
benefit your community.
And 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 project's activities will
further your institutional goals and objectives.
Now, the strategic plan summary is your opportunity to make a
thoughtful and well-constructed connection between the proposed
project and your museum's priorities.
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 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 have at least one full-time equivalent
professional staff person, either paid or unpaid.
Museums should have a physical location that you own or
operate.
Museums should be 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 be part of
a larger institution such as the college, university, Tribe, or
state or local government.
Now the Museums Empowered program is 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.
In this section we will answer the question "What Can Museums
Empowered Grants Fund?"
Providing details of 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.
Museums Empowered 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."
And they go on further to explain that a project is
temporary because it has a defined beginning and an end,
and therefore a defined scope and set of 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.
And 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 which are designed to
accomplish a specific singular goal.
Let's look a little bit further at some of the key
characteristics of successful Museums Empowered applications.
The first is Institutional Impact.
The project should use professional development as a
catalyst to generate systemic change or organizational growth
within a museum.
Successful projects should also demonstrate In-depth Knowledge.
The project design should reflect a solid understanding of
relevant theory and effective practices in professional
development. And there should be a Staff-Centered Design to the
project.
That means that the work plan engages staff, leadership, and
volunteers in a set of logical, interrelated activities tied
directly to addressing the key need or challenge.
Successful projects will most often exemplify these
characteristics and fit well within the Museums Empowered
grant program.
It's also been our experience that unfunded applications fail
to deliver convincingly on one or more of these areas.
If project-based design and institutional impact are core
elements of your project,
then now it's time to consider how your application aligns with
the grant program goals and associated objectives.
IMLS, you know, we recognize that there's many challenges
facing individual museums and a need to invest resources, time
and energy towards nurturing the professional development of
staff and strengthening museum operations.
So in this grant program, we've identified 4 areas of museum
operations to focus for professional development and
these are listed in the following grant program goals.
Goal One is to provide museum staff with the skills to
integrate digital technology into museum operations.
Goal Two,
support museum staff in providing inclusive and
equitable services to people of diverse geographic, cultural,
and socio-economic backgrounds and to individuals with
disabilities.
Goal Three,
strengthen the ability of a museum staff to use evaluation
as a tool to shape museum programs and improve outcomes.
And Goal Four, which is to strengthen and support museum
staff as the essential part of a resilient organizational
culture.
So 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 activities that support staff
learning and integration of digital tools and services that
enhance access to museum collections.
The emphasis here is on staff learning and integration of
these new tools, not just on the acquisition of the tools.
And here's an example of a Digital Technology focused
project that was funded recently.
The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. was awarded
about $239,000 to improve staff understanding of digital asset
management practices and build consensus around how best to
steward these assets.
This involved a cross-departmental staff team.
They worked with specialized staff and consultants to develop
this plan and to work together to develop a long term strategy
that would help the museum over time.
Goal Two focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion and
supports projects that help museum staff in providing
inclusive and equitable services to people of diverse geographic,
cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds and to individuals
with disabilities.
Now, this might involve activities that create training
and learning opportunities, that increase cultural competency of
museum staff, and enhance relevancy of museum programs. Or
activities that develop and implement inclusive and
equitable fellowship, internship, and mentoring
programs to increase support for emerging professionals from
diverse communities entering the museum field.
Here are some examples of recently funded projects.
The New York Historical Society was awarded $189,000 in 2024 to
build staff cultural competency and accessibility and improve
K-12 programming for students with disabilities.
And this project really is about creating sustainable systems and
structures for ensuring that all programs that the museum offers
takes the needs of students with disabilities into account.
It also creates a pattern of consistent accessibility
training for all museum education staff, as well as
creating space for staff to learn from and network with peer
organizations.
We have also made this 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 entry.
Goal Three supports projects that help 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; or activities that
provide museum staff with the tools and strategies to adapt
evaluation methods to address a specific audience or
institutional need.
Here's an example of a recently funded project that was focused
on evaluation.
The Mid-America Science Museum was awarded $46,000 in 2024 to
build capacity for staff to use evaluation as an ongoing cycle
of inquiry when creating or improving museum programs and
exhibits.
This involved hiring an expert consultant to train staff on
evaluations and also opportunities for department
teams to work with a consultant to do evaluation studies on
programs and exhibits and gain practice in developing goals,
designing data collection instruments, and analyzing
information.
We've also made this award 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 entry.
Goal Four in Museums Empowered 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 perhaps activities that help you
develop and implement programs that address the specific
learning and growth opportunities identified by
staff needs assessments.
Here's an example of a recently funded project focused on
Organizational Management.
The Peabody Essex Museum was awarded $250,000 in 2024 to
create a professional development initiative that will
improve the workplace environment and fill gaps in
expertise while creating an environment that supports staff
in their professional growth and varied learning, working and
management styles.
The activities include developing and implementing a
learning agenda for all 243 staff as well as establishing a
leadership program for 53 managers and staff interested in
becoming managers.
The organization will undertake a series of customized skill
building workshops for all staff, and as a result, staff
will be better able to navigate public expectations and provide
museum experiences that respond to a wide range of diverse
audience needs and interests.
We've made this 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 entry.
Projects should fit within one of these four program goals, but
sometimes there's an overlap in the kinds of activities you're
proposing, which may make it difficult to select one program
goal.
Here are a few strategies to help you select the goal that
aligns best with your project.
Think carefully about what is in the center of your project, who
or what will benefit from the work, and what will be improved
once you've finished your project.
Also think about who you want to review your application and what
kind of skill sets and experiences you want them to
have.
List all the activities.
Another option is to list all the activities you plan to carry
out and assign each to a goal, and then see which goal gets the
most activities.
Where will most of the resources be spent?
You can try any of these options, but you might ask, why
is the decision about which goal to choose so important?
Well, because it does impact the review process and your
application will be reviewed by museum professionals who have
experience and expertise that's aligned with the goal that you
select.
So in addition, your application will be competing against others
who have chosen the same goal.
So our advice is to choose one program goal and write your
proposal accordingly.
Regardless of the goal selected, all Museums Empowered project
budgets must stay within a specific range of funding.
Your project budget can request a minimum of $5,000 to a maximum
of $250,000 in federal funds.
If you ask for less than $5,000 or more than $250,000 in federal
grant funds, your application may be rejected and not
reviewed.
Remember to keep your budget aligned to the scope and the
scale of your project, including all costs necessary to complete
the proposed activities. And in this grant program,
all project budgets are required to have at least a one-to-one
cost share, and cost share can take a number of forms.
Among them are cash, staff time, volunteer time, third-party
contributions, grants from foundations, or support from
state or local government.
Cost share cannot come from other federal sources.
The number of applications received and the number of
awards made can vary from year to year.
In the most recent application cycle, we received 72
applications requesting over $13 million.
From these applications, we selected 18 projects to receive
funding totaling about$ 3.3 million.
On the IMLS website, you can use the Search Awarded Grants
function to explore our archive of grants to see what we have
awarded in past years. There are currently about 155 Museums
Empowered awards listed there.
And in addition, the 18 awards that were just announced in
August.
You can search this database using a variety of criteria such
as institution name, location, and keyword, and your search
will retrieve basic information about each award, including the
amount of federal funds awarded and a brief description of the
proposed activities and expected results.
In this section, we will 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 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 in
Grants.gov. The Table of Application Components in the
NOFO list 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.
On this slide, you'll see the list of 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's a seven-page limit for the
narrative.
If you exceed the page limit specified in the Notice of
Funding Opportunity, we will remove the extra pages before
your application goes out for review.
That means
the reviewer may well see a paragraph or sentence end in
mid-air and will wonder about your organizational skills and
your attentiveness to detail.
So, make sure your content fits into the page limit specified in
the NOFO, and make sure that 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.
So, for example, if you're applying as a nonprofit, then
you must include your proof of nonprofit status issued by 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, then you must include a copy of your final
rate agreement.
And if you're going to create a digital product during the
course of your project, well, then you must complete and
submit a Digital Products Plan following the guidance in the
NOFO.
Now, just like the required documents, omission of one of
these might result in your application's rejection.
And please note that the term "digital product" includes
anything digitized or born-digital content, resource,
or assets, as well as software that's being created.
And if you are creating any of these materials, you must
include the form with your application.
The third group of application components is Supporting
Documents.
And supporting documents are optional and 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 documents that support
your project justification, your project work plan and project
results, as well as your budget justification.
For example, have you identified a partner whose involvement is
key to the project success?
And if you've done that, then a letter of support or commitment
would go a long way to reassuring reviewers that this
partner is on board and the project will succeed.
Pictures can help give reviewers who may not be familiar with
your institution a better idea of what you're describing within
your narrative.
Vendor quotes or equipment specifications show you've done
some of the legwork in getting appropriate estimates for your
project.
Now we recommend that you be respectful of your reviewers'
time and avoid any temptation to include hundreds of pages of
extraneous material.
Being judicious really does work to your benefit, as supporting
documents can make or break an application.
Include what is important, what is helpful and directly relevant
to your project, and stop there.
Now in the following sections of this presentation, we'll focus
on two parts of the application: the Narrative and the Budget.
And be sure to go to the Notice of Funding Opportunity for
complete instructions.
In this section, we will go over the questions you'll need to
answer in your project narrative and offer details on the review
criteria associated with each section: the Project
Justification, Project Work Plan, and Project Results.
So let's talk about the narrative of your proposal.
You have 7 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.
In this section, we're going to ask what need, problem or
challenge will your project address?
You want to describe how you've used any data or evidence to
define the need, problem, or challenge and how you use that
to develop the scope for the project.
We also want to know who is the primary audience for your
project and how have they been involved in the planning?
"Primary Audience" refers to those who will most immediately
and positively be affected by your project.
You want to identify the number of individuals in this primary
audience group.
And we also want you to think about the primary or the
ultimate beneficiaries for this project.
Now, "Beneficiaries" refers to those who are likely to be aided
in the long-term by your project.
Now, this might be different than your primary audience, and
we also want you to, you know, just talk about the individuals
who will benefit from your project in the long-term.
In the Notice of Funding Opportunity under Review
Criteria, you'll find 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're providing reviewers clear and
solid information.
And you'll see that they correspond fairly directly with
the prompts you are given to write your narrative.
One of the essential questions in Museums Empowered
applications is the focus on project activities designed to
use professional development and training to generate systemic
change or organizational growth within the museum.
So we want to see that built into the justification for your
project.
One of the prompts in the Project Justification section of
the narrative is the identification of the need,
problem, or challenge that you're going to address.
It's a foundational part of the application because the federal
government wants to invest in something that's going to make
an improvement, make something 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.
Or, you know, let us know, how will someone learn something
new? And will they develop a new skill or change in attitude?
It's important to identify why it's important that this
particular change happens.
And hopefully you'll be able to describe your problem definition
in clear and succinct terms and gather and present relevant data
to support your problem definition.
And the next part of the narrative is the Work Plan.
And so, if we think about the Project Justification, the first
part of the narrative, as the why, the Project Work Plan
section is where you identify the who, what, when and how. Who
will do the activities, when, and using what resources?
You want to explain how you will track your progress and what
you'll need to do to correct course if something changes.
We also asked you to think about risks, the ones that are
inherent in your particular project, and tell us how you've
taken that into account in your planning.
And particularly, we want to know how you're going to
organize and structure the project team to support
equitable and inclusive engagement of all participants.
Here's a list of the questions that reviewers are asked to
consider when they review your proposal.
You want to make sure that again, your Work Plan narrative
is answering these questions. And the Museums Empowered
reviewers are really going to be looking closely to see if the
proposed project team is structured in a way that is
equitable and mutually beneficial to those involved.
Now let's dig a little deeper here.
One of the questions we ask in this work plan is about risk and
there are some inherent risks, perhaps for your particular
project, and you'll need to tell us how you're taking that into
account on your planning.
This is sort of the "What If?" question, and there's no
checklist of risks, but every project has them and the best
proposals will show that you're aware of them and have thought
through a plan for dealing with them.
Look at your activities and think about what could go wrong,
and focus on the ones where your experience tells you that yeah,
that could happen, and here's some things we might need to
build into our Work Plan.
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, and it will be
diminished or eliminated altogether perhaps.
We ask you to tell us what data you're going to collect and
report in order to measure your project's success.
And then if you're going to generate some tangible products,
this is the opportunity to describe them and make the case
that they will be useful and accessible to the intended
audience.
Now, again, here's the list of review questions that reviewers
are asked to consider when they read and score the Project
Results section of your Narrative.
And these are all found in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Overall, when you think about results, you want to make sure
that they tie back to your need, problem, or challenge that you
identified in the Project Justification.
We often hear that defining intended results and success
measures is challenging for applicants.
So let's talk a little bit about that in more detail.
So we think back, we want you to think back to the questions we
referenced a few slides ago when we talked about defining the
need, problem, or challenge that your project is addressing.
And if you said someone will learn something, well, how will
you know?
And if you want to generate systemic change or
organizational growth in your museum, how are you going to
measure that?
This focus on results and measuring success in meaningful
ways is not new.
There's been a tremendous amount of work done on ways to measure
success.
For you as an applicant though, we encourage you to consider
using a logic model or maybe an outcomes-based evaluation tool
to explain your intended results and your plan for achieving
them.
So to recap, your Narrative has three sections, Project
Justification, Project Work Plan, and Project Results, and
you have 7 pages for it.
The sections are all equally important.
You should write clearly, address what we asked you to
address, and keep an eye on those review criteria.
We're telling you exactly what the reviewers will look for, so
make it easy for them to find it in the narrative and understand
your logic.
In this section, we will provide information on what to include
in your Project Budget and 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 Budget Justification.
The budget form is a fillable PDF that accommodates up to
three years of 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 consultant time, or
some percentage of paid staff contributing to the project
activities, or even 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 activities.
They need to be allowable according to the applicable
federal cost principles,
auditable, and incurred during the award period of performance.
As you develop your budget, keep in mind that there are certain
costs that are either unallowable or allowable
according to federal regulations.
The allowability of a cost item for all federal grants is
specified in the Code of Federal Regulations, also known as the
CFR, and in this section called "2 CFR 200," which is where you
find 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 in our grant
applications.
The Notice of Funding Opportunity includes a partial
list of the most common examples, and this short list is
just shown on this slide as an example.
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.
There are also some costs which are unallowable according to the
federal regulations in 2CFR 200.
These are also listed in the Notice of Funding Opportunity
and 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'll 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.
Now, if after doing that, you have some specific questions,
please contact us and we'll be happy to talk you through it.
In addition to the IMLS Budget Form, you'll 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.
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 and
summarized on the IMLS budget form.
In other words, this is where you 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 by cost share.
You need to provide their names and describe their role in the
project.
You should document the method of cost computation by including
the base salary or wage for each person and the percentage of
time that each person is allocated to the project
activities. And that can be shown as a percentage of time,
number of days, number of hours, whatever works for you.
This is your place to show the detail.
If cost share is being provided by unpaid volunteers, you can
list that here, but be sure to explain how you arrived at the
dollar amount used to represent the value of their services.
In the 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 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.
And by watching this information video, you're off to a good
start.
You should become familiar with Grants.gov's Workspace.
There's many good features, such as the opportunity to
collaborate with others in creating your application, as
well as a validation process that helps you identify errors
prior to submission.
Tutorials are also 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.
Submit your application in Grants.gov well before the
deadline so you can correct any errors and avoid any issues by
technology challenges.
It's also important to get your application submitted online
through Grants.gov before the deadline.
We don't accept applications by mail or e-mail, so 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 don't wait
until it's time to hit the submit button to check on them.
And you might want to coordinate with other staff, such as your
Authorized Organizational Representative, who may hold the
accounts and passwords you'll need.
Both SAM.gov and Grants.gov have robust help features, FAQs, and
help desks.
If you run into technical issues with either of these sites, you
should reach out to them and request a tracking number, case
number, or ticket number in order to document your issue and
any attempt to resolve it.
Failure to have an active SAM.gov registration or
Grants.gov registration by the application deadline is not an
excuse for submitting a late application. So again, start
early.
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 strength and
weakness 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 as possible, here
are a few tips.
Look at the Notice of Funding Opportunity 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 and acronyms.
The people who are going to read your application are museum
professionals, but they may not be totally familiar with your
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 a colleague to review everything with fresh
eyes before you submit.
Ask them to act like a reviewer who's seeing it for the first
time.
Now we've also posted the narrative and scheduled of
completion from several successful applications.
You can find these examples by going to the Sample Applications
section on the IMLS website and scroll down the page to find the
Museums Empowered examples.
Each sample application PDF contains a copy of the
seven-page narrative and also the schedule of 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.
Looking at these proposals might help clarify your thinking about
your own.
Here are a few important dates related to Museums Empowered
applications.
Applications must be received by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on
November 15th, 2024.
Your application will be time stamped by Grants.gov.
After the deadline, IMLS staff will review your application for
completeness and eligibility.
You'll hear from us by e-mail if there are any problems.
Next, we'll select experienced and knowledgeable peer reviewers
to read your application 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 as well
as the IMLS Director, and by law, the IMLS Director is
charged with the authority and responsibility to make final
award decisions, and this typically happens by July.
In early August 2025, we'll 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 in
the first day of September 2025.
And in conclusion, as you read through the NOFO and prepare
your application, additional questions may arise.
We can help you with learning more about the Museums Empowered
grant program or other grant programs at IMLS, and we can
help address any specific concerns you may have 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 calendar.
You will then receive an e-mail with a calendar invite and a
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.