Welcome to the Institute of Museum and Library Services,
Office of Museum Services. Informational video Getting
Started with IMLS Museum Grants.
The goal of this video is to provide a high level overview of
our FY 2024 grant funding opportunities and the process of
applying for them.
This video is organized into six chapters. What is IMLS? Is my
institution eligible for an IMLS Museum grant? Which grant
program should I apply to? How do I apply? What if I have more
questions? And what if I'm not ready to apply this year?
To get the most out of this video, we recommend that you
watch it in its entirety. This will give you an idea of the
funding opportunities that best fit for your organization. Once
you've done that, we recommend reading the Notice of Funding
Opportunity for the programs you are considering.
Notices of Funding Opportunities, also known as No
FOs, are documents that detail the requirements of each of our
grant programs for fiscal year 2024. All of our NOFOs can be
found at imls.gov\Grants.
Once you've selected a funding opportunity, you'll be ready to
begin the application process. As you navigate the process, you
can see 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.
Now that we understand the structure of this video, let's
talk about IMLS.
IMLS is an independent federal grant making agency and
the primary source of federal support for the nation's museums
and libraries. The IMLS vision and mission statements were
adopted as part of the agency's current strategic plan.
Both emphasized that IMLS is here to support museums and
libraries and their work of serving their communities.
IMLS's vision is a nation where museums and
libraries work together to transform the lives of
individuals and communities.
Our mission is to advance, support, and empower America's
museums, libraries, and related organizations through grant
making, research, and policy development. Our full strategic
plan is available at imls.gov.
OMS, or the Office of Museum Services, is a key component of
IMLS.
In our last annual grant cycle, we awarded approximately $40
million in funding to a diverse group of institutions including
art history and science museums, zoos, aquaria, professional
associations, universities and Native American tribes. We
encourage you to apply for IMLS funding to support your
institutions, goals or those of the museum field. Our current
application cycle opened on August 15th and will close on
November 15th.
Let's discuss some eligibility ground rules for applying to our
grant programs.
It's important to remember that each IMLS grant program has its
own specific requirements. Those are detailed in the NOFOs, and
we'll discuss them in chapter three of this video.
For now, let's go over the federally mandated requirements
that all potential applicants should be aware of.
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.
Three of our grant programs, Museums for America, Museums
Empowered and Inspired Grants for Small Museums, are only
available to individual museums.
In order to qualify for our museum programs, your
organization 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,
2023, 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.
Here are some examples of the types of organizations that
could be considered museums. Please note that this list is
not exhaustive.
For three other OMS programs, National Leadership Grants for
Museums, Museum Grants for African American History and
Culture, and the Native American Native Hawaiian Museum Services
Program, additional eligibility requirements exist. We will
address this in Chapter three of this presentation. Please refer
to the Eligibility section of the program NOFOs for detailed
guidance.
Once you've determined whether or not your organization is
eligible for a given grant program, you'll want to know
what types of activities or projects it can fund. A good
rule of thumb is that expenses must relate to specific project
activities, not the general operation of your institution.
Some of these project related expenses may include.
Salaries, wages and fringe benefits, travel expenses,
materials and supplies, program evaluation, internships and
fellowships, equipment to improve collection, storage, and
so on.
There are also some types of expenses that are not allowed in
your IMLS budget request or in your cost share. These include
general fundraising costs such as development office staff or
other staff, time devoted to general fundraising,
contributions to endowments, general operating support, the
acquisition of collections.
Construction or renovation of facilities and social
activities, receptions and entertainment.
Now that we have covered the basics of our eligibility
requirements and allowable versus unallowable cost, let's
get into some program specific details.
As mentioned previously, the IMLS Office of Museum Services is
currently offering six grant programs for FY24. It is
important to know how these programs are alike and different
so that you apply to the program that best meets your needs and
eligibility.
Museums for America or MFA, is our biggest grant program,
receiving the largest number of applications each year and the
one through which we make the most awards. MFA supports museum
projects focusing on exhibitions.
Educational interpretive programs, digital learning,
resources, professional development, community debate
and dialogue, audience focused studies and or collections
management, curation, care, and conservation.
These projects should address a key component of your
institutions strategic plan.
As an applicant, you must align your project with one of Imola's
agency level goals. By choosing a project category, your options
are lifelong learning, community engagement and collection,
stewardship and access.
Rent requests may range from $5,000 to $250,000. MFA requires
A1 to 1 cost share. This means that for every dollar you
request from IMLS, you must plan to provide an additional dollar
in cash from a non federal source, staff or volunteer time
or third party in kind contributions. Please note that
MFA is only available to museums. Projects can be
scheduled to last from one to three years and they must begin
on September 1st, 2024.
Museums Empowered or ME is a special initiative of museums
for America. It is designed to support projects that use the
transformative power of professional development and
training to generate systemic change within museums of all
types and sizes.
Potential projects should address one of four project
categories.
Digital Technology to provide museum staff with the skills to
integrate digital technology into museum operations.
Diversity, Equity, inclusion to support museum staff and
providing inclusive and equitable services to people of
diverse geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds
and to individuals with disabilities.
Evaluation to strengthen the ability of museum staff to use
evaluation as a tool to shape museum programs and improve
outcomes.
Organizational management to strengthen and support museum
staff as the essential part of a resilient organizational
culture.
Grant requests may range from $5,000 to $250,000 for projects
scheduled to last from one to three years. All projects must
begin on September 1st, 2024. Like MFA, ME requires a 1 to 1
cost share and is only available to museums.
INSPIRE Grants for Small Museums, another special
initiative of the Museums for America program, is designed
specifically to help small museums address the priorities
identified in their strategic plans. As an applicant, you must
align your project with one of three project categories,
lifelong learning, institutional capacity or collection,
stewardship, and access. When applying to this program, you
must make a case as a small museum using attributes such as
staff size, operating budget, and size relative to
organizations.
Within your discipline or geographic region.
There are two funding levels and Inspire and each has its own
cost share requirement. For smaller scale projects,
requesting $5,000 to $25,000, no cost share is required. For
larger projects requesting $25,001 to $75,000, a one to one
cost share is required.
Just like MFA and ME, this opportunity is only available to
museums. Inspire projects must begin on September 1st, 2024 and
may last from one to two years.
The National Leadership Grants for Museums program, or NLF-M,
supports projects that advance the museum fields, ability to
provide engaging learning opportunities, address community
needs, and steward collections through projects that result in
model tools and resources, training and professional
development, research findings, and forums that explore current
challenges and emerging issues.
NLGM is open to museums, organizations, or associations
that engage in activities designed to advance the
well-being of museums and the museum profession, and to
institutions of higher education.
There are two NLGM project types.
Non research projects support efforts that result in tools and
resources for the field. Non research grant requests may
range from $50,000 to $750,000 for projects scheduled to last
one to three years and requires a 1 to 1 cost share.
Research projects pose questions of importance to the field and
use accepted research methodologies to collect,
analyze and share the data that answers those questions.
Research grant requests may range from $50,000 to $750,000
for project scheduled to last one to three years with no cost
share required. All NLGM projects must begin on September
1, 2024.
The goal of the Museum Grants for African American History and
Culture program, or AAHC, is to build the capacity of African
American museums and to support the growth and development of
museum professionals and African American museums and
Historically Black Colleges and universities.
There are two funding levels in AAHC and each has its own cost
share requirement.
For smaller scale projects requesting $5,000 to $100,000, no
cost share is required. For large projects requesting
$100,001 to $500,000, a one to one cost share is required.
AAHC is open to museums whose primary purpose, as reflected in
its mission, is African American life, art history, and or
culture, not-for-profit. Museum service organizations or
associations whose primary purpose, as reflected in its
mission, is to support such museums and to the federally
designated Historically Black colleges and universities HBCUs
may be eligible even if they do not have the museum.
Projects may be scheduled to last from one to three years,
and projects must begin on July 1st, 2024.
The Native American Native Hawaiian Museum Services
Program, NANH for short, is open to federally recognized tribes,
including Alaskan Native villages and corporations and
organizations that primarily serve and represent Native
Hawaiians. Other types of organizations, such as museums,
may partner but not serve as the legal applicants for this
program.
The 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.
Museum services is defined broadly for this program, but is
meant to support projects that sustain Indigenous heritage,
culture, and knowledge. Some of the ways NANH grantees do
this is through exhibitions, educational programs, language
preservation, training and professional development,
organizational capacity building and collection stewardship.
NANH projects can be scheduled to last from one to
three years and must begin on July 1st, 2024.
Grant request may range from $5,000 to $250,000 and no cost
share is required for this program.
Keep in mind that there is no limit to the number of programs
that you can apply to, but if an organization submits multiple
applications, they must be for separate and distinct projects.
For further details on each program, please check their full
Notice of Funding Opportunity at ims.gov\Grants, or feel free to
contact one of our program officers listed on the web page
associated with the applicable grant program.
Once you have determined which opportunities you are interested
in, it's time to apply.
Again, the FY24 cycle for these 6 grant programs opened on
August 15th. We'll be accepting applications for these programs
until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on November 15th, 2023.
We recommend starting your application as soon as you can.
Unexpected delays may arise and we cannot.
accept late applications.
The first step in applying is to register for sam.gov.
Sam stands for System for Award Management. Sam is a federal
repository that centralizes information about grant
applicants and recipients and is free to all users. Applicants
must be registered with Sam before registering with
grants.gov.
All grant payments will be made to the bank account that is
associated with the organization's Sam registration.
Your registrations must be complete and up to date for you
to submit an application to IMLS or to receive an award. If this
is your first time applying for IMLS funding, it's important to
know that you must complete the sam.gov registration before
moving on to any other steps in the application process.
If you have registered with Sam in the past, you must renew your
account before moving on to any other steps in the process. An
expired registration will prevent an organization from
submitting applications via grants.gov and receiving awards
or payments.
We strongly recommend that you begin or update these
registrations immediately. Doing so is completely free.
To begin, visit sam.gov and use the FAQ's to answer questions.
If you need further assistance, call the Federal Service Desk at
866-606-8220 Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Eastern Time.
The second place you need to register is with grants.gov It
is the portal through which all federal grant applications must
be submitted.
Once your Sam registration is active, you can log into your
Sam record to locate your unique entity identifier or UEI.
You need this active UEI to register and grants.gov.
Grants.gov is a website owned and operated by the federal
government and is also free to users.
Please allow several weeks to complete the grants.gov
registration. The grants.gov website is extensive and its
help capabilities are numerous and well staffed.
Begin with the website and its FAQ's, but if you need
additional help, you may call their helpline at 800-518-4726,
which is available 24/7 except on federal holidays. Visit their
support page at the website listed here or e-mail them at
support@grants.gov.
If we haven't answered all of your questions in this video,
don't fear. There are plenty of other ways to learn more about
our programs.
Our website www.imls.gov has a wealth of information. There you
can find our strategic plan, information about each grant
program, project, descriptions of previously awarded grants,
sample applications and contact information of IMLS staff.
After you reviewed the IMLS website, keep an eye out for
additional upcoming videos. In September, we'll release a video
about each grant program. Those will delve into the specific
requirements for each opportunity and provide tips for
creating a competitive application.
You'll be able to find these in additional video
content at IMLS.gov\ webinars.
If you'd like to ask individualized questions, we
recommend one-on-one counseling sessions with Office of Museum
Services staff. These are 30 minute meetings between program
officers and potential applicants.
To sign up for a counseling session, visit imls.gov\ Grants
and navigate to the program you are interested in.
We hope that all potential applicants will take full
advantage of the resources in Chapter 5 of this video and
reach out to a staff member with any lingering questions.
However, we understand that this may not be the ideal time for
your institution to participate in our programs. If you're not
ready to apply for this funding cycle, we have a couple of
recommendations.
One option is to apply to become a peer reviewer, peer reviewers
or industry professionals who play a critical role in our
award selection process by reading and scoring the grant
applications. As a reviewer, you'll get a behind the scenes
view of the review process and gain a better understanding of
what makes a proposal successful.
To apply to become a peer reviewer, please visit
imls.gov\ Grants\ Peer Review and click on Apply to
Become a Museum reviewer.
You can also find our webinar for potential museum reviewers
through our webinar page.
Another tool that can help you prepare for the grant
application process is an assessment program.
IMLS offers 2 assessment programs for institutions that
would like to better understand their own needs.
These are the Museum Assessment Program or MAP and the
Collections Assessment for Preservation or CAP program.
IMLS supports these two technical assistance programs
through cooperative agreements, with the goal of helping museums
strengthen their operations, identify collections care
priorities, and plan for the future.
Participating in an assessment program is a great starting
point for small and mid sized museums. The documents that
result from these assessments can be used to implement future
aimless grant applications.
The Museum Assessment Program, or MAP, is funded by IMLS and
managed by the American Alliance of Museums.
It is available to small and mid size museums of all types and
its purpose is to help organizations strengthen their
operations, plan for the future and meet professional standards
through self study and a consultative site visit from an
expert peer reviewer MAP Participants can choose from 5
assessment types.
The Organizational assessment, Collection, Stewardship
Assessment, Education and interpretation, Assessment,
Community and Audience, and the Advanced Board Leadership
Assessment.
To learn more, please visit www.aam-us.org\ MAP, or call
202-289-9118. The next application deadline is expected
to be February 1, 2024. To be notified when the next
application. Is open and to receive updates about the MAP
program, please send your contact information to
map@aam-us.org.
Also funded by IMLS but administered by the Foundation
for Advancement and Conservation, or FAIC, the
Collections Assessment for Preservation Program or CAP
program for short.
Provide small and mid sized museums with support for general
conservation assessments. These assessments consist of a self
study and a two day on site visit by assessors who
specialize in collections, conservation and building
preservation.
CAP is often the first step for small and mid sized museums that
wish to improve the condition of their collections. A CAP
assessment can assist your institution by helping you
decide how to invest limited funding and staff time,
facilitating the development of a long term preservation plan
and serving as a fundraising tool for future conservation
projects.
For more information about the CAP program and application
process, please visit the FAIC's website at
www.culturalheritage.org\ CAP or e-mail cap at
culturalheritage.org.
Thank you for your interest in IMLS's FY24 Museum funding
opportunities. Before you go, I'd like to leave you with some
final reminders.
Each of our grant opportunities have different requirements and
goals. Please review www.imls.gov/grants to learn
more. It is very important to register early with sam.gov and
grants.gov If you have registered previously. Remember
that these registrations expire and be sure you know the
usernames and passwords you'll need well in advance of the day
you submit your application.
Applications to all IMLS Museum grants are due November
15th, 2023, but don't wait until the last minute to submit.
Throughout the application. We will offer additional webinars
that can be viewed at imls.gov/ Webinars. You can also schedule
one-on-one counseling calls with program staff to answer your
specific questions.