The Institute of Museum and Library Services works through its Museums for America Funding Opportunities to support projects that strengthen the ability of individual museums to serve the public. Grant funding will be available for three project categories in the next funding cycle, including:
Learning Experiences
IMLS supports the unique ability of museums to open the door to meaningful knowledge and enhanced inquiry skills for people of all ages and backgrounds through multi-sensory learning, discovery, critical thinking, and problem solving. IMLS welcomes applications for projects that position museums as unique teaching and inquiry-focused institutions within today’s formal and informal learning ecosystem. Successful projects will provide high-quality, inclusive educational opportunities that address particular audience needs. We encourage projects that are based upon current research in cognitive and behavioral science as well as best practices developed in museums and other informal learning environments.
Community Anchors
IMLS promotes the role of museums as essential partners in addressing the needs of their communities by leveraging their expertise, knowledge, physical space, technology, and other resources to identify and implement solutions. By strengthening museums’ capacities for civic engagement, these projects contribute to the creation of livable, sustainable communities. IMLS welcomes applications for projects that empower museums to transform their roles in their communities from being community resources to being community catalysts. Museums have a role to play providing civic and cultural engagement, facilitating lifelong learning, promoting digital inclusion, and supporting economic vitality through programming and services. We envision museums to be highly collaborative, adopt co-creating strategies, and engage with a wide variety of cross-sector stakeholders to accomplish a sustained collective impact goal.
Collections Stewardship
IMLS supports the exemplary management, care, and conservation of, as well as broad access to and use of museum collections. Investments designed to contribute to the long-term preservation of materials and specimens are complemented by skill-building and capacity-expanding programs for museum staff, volunteers, and interns. IMLS welcomes applications for projects that address state-of-the-art collections care and collections-information management, curation, preventive conservation, conservation treatments, database creation and enhancement, digitization, and the use of digital tools to facilitate discovery and deepen engagement with museum collections.
For more information on eligibility and requirements, please visit the IMLS grant notice.
Applications are due December 1, 2016.