Welcome to the Institute of Museum and Library Services,
Office of Museum Services, Native American/Native Hawaiian
Museum Services Grant Program applicant information session.
The goal of this video is to provide an overview of our
Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services Grant Program,
which we call "NANH" for short, and the process of preparing an
application for funding.
This video is organized into six chapters.
What is the Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum
Services Grant Program?
This section explains the purpose and eligibility criteria
of the NANH grant program.
What do NANH grants fund?
This section explains the types of projects that can be funded
in NANH and the amount of funds that can be requested.
Application Components - this section describes the types of
documents that are needed to create an NANH grant
application.
Application Components - Narrative 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
NANH 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 NANH grant
program, the types of projects that can be funded, and the
necessary application components.
You may also want to review the NANH Notice of Funding
Opportunity before, during, or 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 via 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.
In this section we will answer the question "What is NANH?"
providing information on the purpose and intent of this grant
program and who it is designed to serve.
The overall goal of the NANH program is to build the capacity
of Native American Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to
provide "museum services" to their communities in order to
help their heritage, culture, and knowledge thrive.
Some, but not all, of the ways Tribes and Native Hawaiian
organizations might do this are through educational services and
programs, professional development, organizational
capacity building, community engagement, and collection
stewardship.
It's important to note, however, that applicants do not have to
have a physical museum or cultural center constructed in
order to provide "museum services" to your communities.
The NANH program has unique eligibility criteria from other
museum grant programs offered at IMLS.
Specifically, in order to be eligible for an award under this
program, the lead or legal applicant must be either a
Federally recognized Indian Tribe, which includes Alaska
Native Villages and Corporations, or a nonprofit
organization that primarily serves and represents Native
Hawaiians.
Our definitions of eligible Tribal organizations can be
found on our IMLS eligibility criteria web page linked here,
or within the Notice of Funding Opportunity for this program.
Other entities, such as museums, libraries, cultural centers,
schools, Tribal colleges, or other nonprofits are not
eligible to apply on their own to this program.
The eligible applicants listed here are welcome to collaborate
with or apply on behalf of those other entities, but as the lead
applicant for the grant, they must meet the eligibility
criteria and administer the award.
So while the lead applicant must be the Tribe, Alaska Native
Village or Corporation, or Native Hawaiian-serving
organization, we understand that when it comes to actually
carrying out a project, that work is often done at an
org-unit level or by a partnering or collaborating
organization such as a Tribal museum or a nonprofit
foundation.
Although they may not serve as lead applicants, partner
organizations may be heavily involved in the administration
of a project and may serve as the key project staff.
It is important that the partner organization have an established
relationship with the Tribal administration before applying
for the grant because the Tribe is ultimately fiscally and
legally responsible for the management of the grant.
The assumption in such a partnership is that the Native
community that applies for the grant is directly served and
benefits from the grant activities that are carried out
by any partners.
In this section we will answer the question "What does the NANH
Program Fund?" providing details on the types of projects and
objectives within the NANH grant program.
NANH grants are designed to support project-based
activities.
The Project Management Institute defines "Project" as "a
temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product,
service, or result."
A project is temporary because it has a defined beginning and
end in time and therefore defines scope and resources.
And a project is unique in that it is not a routine operation,
but rather a specific set of activities designed to
accomplish a singular goal.
We recommend that you keep this definition in mind as you
conceptualize your NANH project.
Think of it as a temporary, non-routine set of activities
which collectively have a beginning and an end, a defined
scope requiring specific resources, and which are
designed to accomplish a specific singular goal.
So while we can find programs, activities and positions that
are already established or ongoing, applicants should be
careful to frame their projects so they do not crossover into
general operations.
NANH projects must be at least one year, but no more than three
years in length.
Let's look further at what characteristics are most often
seen in successful NANH applications.
First, Institutional Impact.
Your project should address a key need or challenge that faces
your Tribe or organization.
Second, In-depth Knowledge.
Your proposal should reflect a thorough understanding of
current practice and knowledge about the subject matter.
Third, Project-based Design. Your Project Work Plan should
consist of a set of logical, interrelated activities tied
directly to addressing the key need or challenge you've
identified.
And 4th, Demonstrable Results.
Your project should generate measurable results that tie
directly to the need or challenge it was designed to
address.
Usually, unfunded applications fail to deliver convincingly on
one or more of these areas, so it is a good idea to make sure
your application shows how your project will be strong in each.
Again, the overarching goal of the NANH program is to build the
capacity of Native American Tribes, including Alaska Native
Villages and Corporations, as well as Native Hawaiian
organizations, to provide museum services to their communities.
Under this main goal are three objectives.
Support the preservation and perpetuation of Indigenous
languages and cultural practices.
Support the professional development of the workforce of
Indigenous museums. And support the management and care of
Indigenous collections and their associated documentation.
You should align your proposed project, with the one objective
that best fits and clearly identify which one you have
chosen in your application narrative.
This goal and these objectives may seem broad, and that's on
purpose.
You should choose the one that is most closely aligned with the
key need or challenge you plan to address in your project.
Many projects have components that touch on two or even all
three of these objectives.
For example, you might be planning to digitize a
collection because you want to share the valuable historical
and cultural information it contains with your community
members, and you're going to train your tribal museum staff
on the latest digitization techniques in the process.
This project could fit under any one of these three objectives.
Since you must pick one, you should think about which
objective is the most central to your project overall.
Ask yourself what activities do you plan to carry out, what
outcomes do you want to achieve, and who will benefit from your
work?
For projects focused on preserving and perpetuating
language or cultural practices, think through who your primary
audience is and what their needs are.
What do you want them to learn or accomplish, and what's the
best way to go about that?
For professional development and capacity building, what does a
successful outcome look like for your Tribe or institution?
Is it recruiting and training more staff?
Paid interns?
Enhancing technology such as your website or upgrading your
software?
Or perhaps strategic planning? For projects focused on
collections stewardship or conservation, what are the
collections you'll be working with and what is their current
situation or condition?
How will that be addressed or improved?
This is a list of some of the types of project activities we
can fund under the NANH program, but it is not exhaustive.
We invite you to develop and apply for projects that best
meet your Tribe's or organization's needs.
Again, you're not required to have a physical museum or
cultural center established in order to provide these types of
services.
Whatever activities you have in mind, you should be sure to
describe them thoroughly and show how they will logically
progress to meet your chosen objective.
You should be cautious about trying to cram too many
different types of activities into the same proposal.
Just because they all might fit under the overarching goal of
the NANH program doesn't mean you should try to do them all at
once.
You can certainly have a project that is multi-faceted or that
has multiple complementary components if that's what makes
the most sense for you, and they all tie back to your chosen
objective.
However, the strongest proposals are clearly defined projects
with logical, interrelated activities that have manageable
scopes, budgets, and timelines.
It's okay to be ambitious, but remember we want to set our
grantees up for success, so we would rather you under-promise
and over-deliver rather than over-promise and under-deliver.
There's no limit to the number of applications you could submit
in response to the funding announcement for the NANH
program.
However, if you do submit multiple applications, they must
be for separate and discrete projects, meaning they must not
overlap in terms of staffing or costs.
For example, you could submit a proposal to support your
language revitalization program, as well as a separate proposal
to inventory and re-house your basket collection.
Likewise, if you have an existing, open NANH award, that
does not prevent you from applying for a new award this
round,
again, as long as the projects do not overlap. You'll want to
consider your Tribe's or organization's capacity not just
to write and submit multiple strong proposals, but then to
manage multiple federal awards at once.
Demonstrating that you have the internal administrative and
financial controls necessary to track and maintain multiple
federal awards simultaneously will be important. NANH supports
projects of all sizes, but there's a specific range of
funding available.
You 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.
Your budget should be aligned to the scope and scale of your
project and should include all costs necessary to complete the
proposed activities. In the NANH grant program,
project budgets are not required to have any non-federal cost
share, though you may include it if you want.
Cost share is not considered in the review of NANH applications.
It's important to note that if you decide to include cost share
in your budget and you receive an award, you will be required
to meet your cost share commitment by the end of the
award period.
Cost share is any portion of project costs not paid by IMLS
funds and may be in the form of cash, staff or volunteer time,
or other third-party contributions.
Cost share may not include funds from another federal source. On
the IMLS website,
you can use the Search Awarded Grants function to explore our
archive of grants that we have awarded in past years.
You can search this database using a variety of criteria,
such as institution name, location, and keyword, and you
can filter it by grant program.
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
for each project.
We've also posted some examples of successful application
narratives from recent years on our website.
To find these, go to the Sample Applications page on the IMLS
website and scroll down the page to find the NANH examples.
Looking at these proposals will show you what a strong proposal
might look like and might help you clarify your thinking about
your own project.
In this section, we will introduce the components of an
NANH grant application.
The NANH Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) includes a
complete list of all the application components and
indicates which documents are required, conditionally
required, or optional supporting documents.
These are the required documents.
All applications must include all of the documents listed
here.
Omission of even just one might result in your application's
rejection.
The SF-424S application form and the IMLS Museum Program
Information Form, both starred on this list, are completed as
fillable forms within the Grants.gov Workspace.
The rest of the application components must be created by
you and saved as PDFs to be uploaded with your application
package in Grants.gov.
Please note there is a 7-page limit for the narrative.
If you exceed that page limit, we must remove the extra pages
before your application goes out for review.
That means your reviewers may see a paragraph or sentence
cut-off in mid-air and won't see any information contained within
the excess pages.
So make sure your content fits into the page limit specified
and double check the number of pages is still correct after you
convert your documents to PDFs.
The second category of application components is that
of conditionally required documents.
Some applicants must include one. two, or all of these, and
it's important that you know which are required for your
application.
If you are a nonprofit organization that primarily
serves and represents Native Hawaiians, then you must include
your proof of nonprofit status letter issued by the IRS, as
well as appropriate proof of eligibility documentation
outlined in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
If you're using a federally negotiated indirect cost rate in
your budget, then you must include a copy of your current,
final rate agreement.
If you create any digital products during the course of
your project, then you must complete and submit a Digital
Products Plan.
The term "digital product" includes any digitized and
born-digital content, resources or assets, software, or data.
If you are creating any of these types of materials, basically
anything digital, you must include the Digital Products
Plan with your application.
If you are requesting support for conservation treatments for
collections objects, then you must include detailed condition
reports and or formal conservation treatment
proposals.
Just like the required documents,
omission of even one of these can result in the exclusion of
your application from further consideration.
The third group of application components is Supporting
Documents and here's a partial list of examples.
Supporting documents are optional, although some are
strongly recommended depending on your project.
We urge you to make good decisions and include things
that will supplement your proposal.
Supporting documents should not introduce new information.
Rather, as their name suggests, they should support your project
justification, work plan, and intended results that you spell
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 is a crucial element
to reassure reviewers that they are "on-board," and the project
will succeed.
Similarly, documentation showing the buy-in of your leadership,
such as a Tribal resolution, can be a great way to show support,
though again, it's not required.
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 that you've
done some of the legwork in getting appropriate estimates
for project costs.
We recommend that you be respectful of your reviewers'
time and avoid including hundreds of pages of extraneous
materials that are not directly relevant to your project.
Being judicious really does work to your benefit, as supporting
documents can make or break an application.
Please include what is important and helpful and stop there.
In the following sections of this presentation, we will focus
on two of the key required application components, the
Project Narrative and the Project Budget.
Refer to the Notice of Funding Opportunity for complete
instructions on how to prepare and complete all of the other
application components.
So 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.
The sections of the narrative are the Project Justification,
Project Work Plan, and Project Results.
The narrative is the heart of your proposal and the NOFO
provides lengthy guidance on what it should cover and how it
should be formatted with these three sections.
The first section is your Project Justification.
This section should clearly identify which program objective
your project supports, as well as how it will support the
overall NANH program goal of strengthening your Tribe's or
organization's ability to provide museum services to your
community.
What need, problem or challenge will your project address, and
how was it identified?
Describe how you've used demographic information,
economic circumstances, condition assessments, or other
relevant data to define your need, problem, or challenge and
develop the scope for the project.
Who's the primary audience for your project and how have they
been involved in the planning?
"Primary Audience," sometimes also called "Target Group,"
refers to those who will be most immediately and positively
affected by your project.
Identify the number of individuals in your primary
audience, or in each group if you identify 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 people as your primary audience.
Identify the number of individuals who will benefit
from your project in the long-term, if you can.
Otherwise, describe the characteristics of the
beneficiaries you expect to be served eventually by your
project.
And finally, if your project involves collections, be sure to
describe and quantify them. In Section 6 of the Notice of
Funding Opportunity,
under "Peer Review Criteria," you will find a list of
questions that reviewers are asked to answer when they review
your proposal.
It's a good idea to refer to these as you write your
narrative to be certain you are providing reviewers clear, solid
information.
You will see that their criteria correspond directly to the
prompts you are given to write your narrative.
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 is foundational in your 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,
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 members of your community be better able to work together
to solve problems?
Will collections be better cared for and their lifespan extended?
Will access to your collections and the information surrounding
them be expanded?
Identify why is it important that this particular change
happens.
In other words, why should people care?
Hone your problem definition carefully in clear, succinct
terms, and gather and present data that support your problem
definition.
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 intended results and what you'll do if you need
to correct course.
You should also think about risks that are inherent in your
particular project and to tell us how you've taken that into
account in your planning.
I'll say a little more about risks in a few minutes.
Remember, your project must be at least one year (12 months)
and up to three years (36 months) in length.
Again, this is the list of questions that reviewers are
asked to answer for this section when they review your proposal,
so make sure your narrative is answering these effectively.
Remember, the people reading and scoring your application may not
be familiar with your specific history, institution,
collection, etcetera, so don't be vague.
You want to provide enough detail to reassure them that
your project is manageable and can be accomplished with the
staff, time, and resources allocated.
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 you finished it because it doesn't need to be done anymore.
It's no longer on your To-Do List.
An activity is not a goal, a result, or an outcome.
Rather it's something you do as part of striving to achieve
those.
So aim for a reasonable level of detail in identifying your
activities.
Too many and your work plan becomes bogged down and
confusing.
But too few and someone who is reading your application won't
understand the who, when, what and how of your project.
You should aim for a balance.
We also ask you to think about the risks that are inherent in
your particular project and tell us how you've taken that into
account in your planning.
Think of it as answering the question, "What if X doesn't go
according to plan?"
There's no checklist of set risks, but every project has
them.
The best proposals will show you 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 tells you "Yes, that
could happen" and identify steps you would take in response.
We know that things often go differently than expected.
We just want you to prepare by identifying implementable
options.
Here are some examples of risks.
If you intend to hire someone into a grant funded position to
work on the project activities,
what will you do if it takes longer than expected to find the
right candidate, bring them on board and train them?
Or, a project depends on your community partners to achieve
success,
but what if one partner becomes unavailable?
What do you do now?
A project involving rehousing collections into new museum
quality collection storage might run into delays in the delivery
of the cabinets.
What happens to the collection items then?
How will you ensure that they remain safe and secure?
The third section of your narrative should be devoted to
articulating your intended Project Results.
This is your chance to convince the reviewers that the
activities you've spelled out in your Project Work Plan will
result in something getting better.
The need or problem you identified in your Project
Justification will be diminished or eliminated altogether.
This section should logically tie the narrative together by
explaining how you will know that your project has been
successful and how you will measure project 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.
Remember that Digital Products Plan I mentioned as a supporting
document can be useful to expand on this section if it's
applicable.
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 once your
grant is over continue?
What will a longer-term impact be?
And again, here's the list of questions that reviewers are
asked to answer when they read the Project Results section of
your narrative.
We often hear that defining intended results and success
measures is challenging for applicants.
Essentially, we're asking you to explain what will be better as a
result of this project and how will you know?
Think back to the questions we referenced in the Project
Justification section when we talked about defining the need,
problem, or challenge that your project's addressing and how it
fits into one or more of the program objectives.
Your results should tie back directly and logically to those
elements.
If you said someone will learn something,
how will you show that?
If your problem is related to the preservation of traditional
cultural practices, how will you know when that has been
successfully achieved?
If you're saying 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 successfully done it?
You may think of tangential benefits or general positive
outcomes, but make sure you identify them as "in addition
to" and not "instead of" your original intended results.
Reviewers are likely to catch that as a disconnect.
You should be specific and refrain from broad, vague, or
unrealistic claims.
This focus on project results and measuring success in
meaningful ways is not new, but it's not necessarily easy
either.
There are many ways to measure success, and each situation is
unique.
To aid you in visualizing what success could look like for your
project, we encourage you to consider using a logic model or
evaluation tool to explain your intended results and your plan
for achieving them.
There are numerous examples and downloadable worksheets that you
can find with a simple Internet search.
Peer reviewers who are professionals with experience
working in or with Native American, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian communities will be selected by IMLS to read each
application and provide constructive and critical
comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed NANH
projects.
They are instructed to base their reviews only on the
information contained within 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, follow the narrative outline in the NANH NOFO, making
sure you address each prompt.
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 Native museum
professionals, but they may not be familiar with your particular
Tribe or organization's specifics.
Make it easy for them to understand what you mean.
Similarly, provide concrete details, or if details are TBD,
state as much as you can in your narrative so reviewers don't
have to guess or make assumptions about things left
unsaid.
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 this for the first
time and doesn't know any background information about
your project or institution.
And remember to limit that narrative to 7 pages.
And please try to stick to the recommended page limits for
other application components.
So to recap, your Narrative has three sections, Project
Justification, Project Work Plan, and Project Results, and
you have 7 pages to answer all of the prompts.
The sections are all equally important and should all
logically tie together.
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.
Your budget is a critically important component of your
application.
This is where you specify all of the costs associated with your
proposed project.
The budget consists of two required components, the IMLS
Budget Form and the corresponding 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
charged to grant funds, as well as those that will be supported
by cost share, if applicable.
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 and is also linked within the Notice of Funding
Opportunity.
As you develop your budget, keep in mind that there are certain
costs that are either allowable or unallowable according to the
Uniform Federal grant-making regulations, which are referred
to as "2 CFR Part 200" for short.
The NOFO contains links to these regulations.
These provide important guidance on uniform administrative
requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for
Federal awards, so all Federal grant applicants and recipients
should be aware of them.
Using 2 CFR 200 as a basis, we've developed a short list of
some of the types of allowable costs that are common in IMLS
projects.
This list is not exhaustive.
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, if you include any.
The rules about allowability apply equally to both, so when
completing your project budget, be sure to check that all the
costs you include, whether grant funds or cross share, are
allowable.
There are also some costs which are unallowable according to the
federal regulations in 2 CFR 200.
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.
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 Federal cost
principles.
If after that you have specific questions about allowability,
please contact us and we'll be happy to help.
In addition to the IMLS Budget Form, you must also prepare a
Budget Justification.
This is an opportunity to provide an explanation and
justification for the project costs in a more detailed
narrative format.
The Budget Justification should correspond with the cost
categories on 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, please show and double check your math.
The NOFO contains detailed guidance on how to complete your
Budget Form and your Budget Justification.
You should also remember to attach any quotes or estimates
as supporting documents, if applicable.
In this final section of our presentation, we offer some
application tips and next steps based on our experiences with
the NANH application submission process each year.
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 your application now.
Don't try to pull together an entire application in three
days.
Become familiar with Grants.gov's Workspace.
It has many useful features, including upfront validation,
which allows you to correct errors prior to submission, and
the opportunity to collaborate with others in creating your
application.
If you're not used to working with Grants.gov, consider
starting with their Workspace Overview and check out their
tutorials.
Make sure you're looking at and applying to the correct grant
program within Grants.gov.
You can do a keyword search for the IMLS Native American/Native
Hawaiian Museum Services program, or you can enter the
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number, which
is 45.308.
Make sure your application is complete.
Double check it against the Table of Application Components
in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Make sure all application components are in the proper PDF
format and follow the correct naming conventions. And submit
to Grants.gov early so you can correct any errors and avoid any
issues created by slow Internet or other 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 e-mail,
nor do we accept late applications.
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 or
departments, such as your Authorized Organization
Representative or your financial or grants office, who may hold
the accounts and passwords you'll need to submit.
If you have had staff turnover in the past year, that might
also be a flag to double-check who has access to your accounts.
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.
IMLS does not accept failure to have active SAM.gov or
Grants.gov registrations by the deadline as an excuse for
submitting a late application. So again, start early.
Here are the important dates relating to NANH applications
for the FY 2025 funding cycle.
We typically make the Notice of Funding Opportunity available
and start accepting applications in mid-August, around 90 days
before the application deadline.
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.
That is why we say 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 issues.
Next, peer reviewers will read your applications and provide
scores and comments based on the criteria outlined in the NANH
NOFO.
Then, IMLS staff will closely review your project budget and
your track record with past and current grants and prepare all
of the application materials for review by the IMLS Director.
In June 2025, we will notify you by e-mail of the award decisions
and provide the scores and comments created by the
reviewers.
NANH projects must be scheduled to start on July 1st, 2025 and
again, may last from one to three years.
Please make sure that everyone involved in preparing your grant
application is aware of these dates and deadlines.
As you read through the NOFO and prepare your application, you
might have additional questions come up before the deadline.
IMLS staff can help answer your questions about this or any of
our other museum grant programs.
You may contact us by e-mail or phone.
Contact information is listed on the NANH grant program landing
page on the IMLS website.
You can also schedule a counseling call to meet
virtually with program staff.
Use the scheduling link found on the NANH program landing page to
find and book an available time slot on our calendars.
You will then receive an e-mail with a calendar invite and
Microsoft Teams meeting link.
Thank you very much for your interest in IMLS and in the
Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services funding
opportunity.
I hope you found the information in this video helpful.
Good luck and we look forward to seeing your application in
November.