Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff

Grants to USA Nonprofit and Agencies for Museum
Staff Development and Capacity Building

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Agency Type:

Federal

Funding Source:

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Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Museums for America (MFA)

Deadline Date:

11/16/20 11:59 PM ET

Description:

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Grants to USA and territories nonprofit organizations and agencies to improve museum services. Applicants are advised that required registrations may take several weeks to complete. Funding is intended for initiatives in the areas of institutional capacity building and professional development.

Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program with the goal of strengthening the ability of an individual museum to serve its public through professional development activities that cut across various departments to generate systemic change within the museum.

Museums need to be dynamic to respond to fast-evolving technological advances and changing demographics. Museums also need to generate and share results to demonstrate their community impact. In addition, they need to develop sustainable organizational structures and flexible strategies for long-term stability. Professional development is critical for museums to deliver on these areas of need.

IMLS encourages applicants to invest in the professional development of museum staff, leadership, and volunteers to enhance their skills and ensure the highest standards in all aspects of museum operations. Potential projects should involve multiple levels of staff and generate organizational change.

Museums Empowered has four project categories:

Digital Technology: To empower museum staff to fully explore, understand, adopt, and optimize the use of digital technology in museums
Diversity and Inclusion: To empower museum staff to develop cultural competency and support museum relevancy in their communities
Evaluation: To empower museum staff to use formative and summative evaluation of programs, practices, and products that can help the museum yield indicators and measurable outcomes
Organizational Management: To empower museum staff to learn best practices in organizational management, strategic thinking, innovation, and managing change

For more information on each project category, see https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/fy21-oms-me-nofo.pdf#page=4.

For examples of allowable costs, see https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/fy21-oms-me-nofo.pdf#page=18.

GrantWatch ID#:

GrantWatch ID#: 180756

Estimated Total Program Funding:

$3,000,000

Number of Grants:

Anticipated Number of Awards: 20

Estimated Size of Grant:

- Award Ceiling: $250,000
- Award Floor: $5,000

Average amount of funding per award experienced in previous years: $150,000

Term of Contract:

Beginning Date of Period of Performance: Projects must begin on September 1, 2021.

Anticipated period of performance September 1, 2021 – August 31, 2024. Project activities may be carried out for one to three years.

Eligibility:

See RFP and/or Grant Guidelines for full eligibility

Additional Eligibility Criteria:

To be eligible for an award under this Notice of Funding Opportunity, you must be an organization that meets all three of the following criteria:

1. You must be either a unit of State, local, or tribal government or be a private, nonprofit organization that has tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code;

2. You must be located in one of the 50 States of the United States of America, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of Palau; and

3. You must qualify as one of the following:

(a) A museum that, using a professional staff, is organized on a permanent basis for essentially educational, cultural heritage, or aesthetic purposes; owns or uses tangible objects, either animate or inanimate; cares for these objects; and exhibits these objects to the general public on a regular basis through facilities that it owns or operates.

(b) A public or private nonprofit agency that is responsible for the operation of a museum that meets the eligibility criteria in 1, 2, and 3(a), applying on behalf of the museum.

IMLS may determine that a nonprofit organization that is affiliated with a museum is eligible for this initiative where the organization can demonstrate that it has the ability to administer the project and can ensure compliance with the terms of this Notice of Funding Opportunity and the applicable law, including the IMLS Assurances and Certifications. The applicant organization must submit an agreement from the museum that details the activities that the applicant and museum will perform and binds the museum to the statements and assurances made in the grant application.

Native American tribal organizations may apply if they otherwise meet the above eligibility requirements.

Ineligible expenses can be found at https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/fy21-oms-me-nofo.pdf#page=18.

Pre-Application Information:

Timeline:
- Due Date: Submit through Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on November 16, 2020.
- Anticipated Date of Notification of Award Decisions: August, 2021 (subject to the availability of funds and IMLS discretion)
- Beginning Date of Period of Performance: Projects must begin on September 1, 2021.

There is no limit to the number of applications your museum may submit under this announcement.

For the Museums Empowered initiative, at least 1:1 cost share from non-federal sources is required.

Before submitting an application, your organization must have a current and active D-U-N-S number (a unique entity identifier), System for Award Management (SAM.gov) registration, and Grants.gov registration. It is recommended that you allow several weeks to complete your SAM registration. Check your materials and registrations well in advance of the application deadline to ensure that they are accurate, current, and active.

You must register with Grants.gov prior to submitting your application package. The multi-step registration process generally cannot be completed in a single day. If you are not already registered, you should allow several weeks before the application deadline to complete this one-time process. Do not wait until the day of the application deadline to register.

You will need your Grants.gov user ID and password that you obtain during the registration process to submit your application when it is complete.

View this opportunity on Grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=328730
A pre-recorded webinar: https://www.imls.gov/webinars/imls-office-museum-services-choosing-funding-opportunity-fy-2021
Sample Applications: https://www.imls.gov/grants/apply-grant/sample-applications
FY 2021 Applicant Webinar Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff: https://www.imls.gov/webinars
Webinar Info: https://www.imls.gov/webinars
Webinar Recording: https://youtu.be/1EXLJTOeYaU

Contact Information:

Before starting your grant application, please review the funding source's website listed below for updates/changes/addendums/conferences/LOIs.

Mark Isaksen, Senior Program Officer
202-653-4667
misaksen@imls.gov

Laura Zamarripa
Museum Program Specialist
lzamarripa@imls.gov

imls-museumgrants@imls.gov

Institute of Museum and Library Services
955 L’Enfant Plaza North, SW, Suite 4000
Washington, DC, 20024-2135

GRANTS.GOV Applicant Support
1-800-518-4726
support@grants.gov

CFDA Number:

45.301

Funding or Pin Number:

ME-FY21

URL for Full Text (RFP):

See the full text of this grant

Geographic Focus:

USA: Alabama; Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas; California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; Montana; Nebraska; Nevada; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; New York City; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Utah; Vermont; Virginia; Washington, DC; Washington; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming

USA Territories: American Samoa (USA) Guam (USA) Puerto Rico (USA) Virgin Islands (USA) Northern Mariana Islands (USA)

USA Compact Free Associations: The Federated States of Micronesia (USA) Marshall Islands (USA) Republic of Palau (USA)

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