IMLS Inspire! Small Museums
November 13, 2026 (tentative); $5,000-$75,000
The Inspire grant program sets as its goals experiential learning and collections care in small museums in the United States and its territories. It funds projects that can run from one to three years, costing from $5,000-$75,000.
The IMLS does not set concrete parameters to define a “small museum.” When applying, you will fill out an Organizational Profile to provide data on your organization’s capacity. Applicant museums must be nonprofit organizations or part of state, local, or tribal governments. Museums can partner or collaborate on joint projects. Projects requesting over $25,000 are required to cost-share, i.e. put forth an amount of the project cost themselves equal to the amount they are requesting from IMLS.
This grant can fund salaries or stipends for staff or interns, travel expenses, consultant costs, training, technology, supplies or equipment directly related to the project, speaker honoraria, program evaluation, publications, and other project costs. It will not fund social gatherings/receptions, endowments, fundraising, collection acquisitions, or construction/capital improvements. You can read the full lists of allowable and unallowable costs in the grant’s NOFO.
You can view recent grant awards from the Inspire grant program on the IMLS website. Recent awardees include history museums, science and technology museums, planetariums, art museums and centers, and historical societies. Some examples of recent projects:
Workshops to evaluate current collections storage and design new storage space
Development of a new exhibit or interactive experience
Creation of curricula, in partnership with a school district
Cataloging and digitizing historical materials in a digital archives
Oral history transcription
Collections inventory projects
Hosting a symposium
Design and installation of self-guided tours and interpretive signage
Migration of collections records to a new database