IMLS Museums for America
November 13, 2026 (tentative); $5,000-$350,000
The Museums for America program is similar to the Inspire grant program in that it funds projects running for one to three years on projects that advance a museum’s capacity to serve the public through experiential learning and discover, respond to community needs, and managed and care for collections and their documentation. This grant has a cost-share requirement, meaning that applicants must provide funds from non-federal sources equal or greater to the amount they request from IMLS.
This program prioritizes the celebration of American history, encourages civil dialogue, and creatively and effectively uses new technologies to enhance visitor experience. The program also emphasizes that it welcomes institutions serving rural and remote communities. See the Notice of Funding Opportunity for more information.
You can view recent grant awards from the Museums for America program on the IMLS website. Some examples of recent projects:
Rehousing, reorganizing, and cataloging audiovisual media from oral history projects
Hiring staff and purchasing technology to create a virtual field trip program
Conducting a site and collections assessment to inventory signage, wayfinding, and plant labeling across an outdoor site
Modernizing the platform serving as a digital archive, improving security, transcribing and translating documents, and developing educational programs based on primary source materials
Scan photographs and records related to 17th-century archaeological sites, reorganizing artifacts, creating finding aids, and improving access to materials online
Creating a portable exhibit to travel across the state for display at public libraries
Digitizing a photographic collection, creating metadata, and publishing the materials through a collections database online
Hiring staff to complete a full museum collections inventory
Migrating a collections database to a new system
Creating outdoor experiential learning opportunities