Museums for America

The Museums for America (MFA) program invests in museums of all sizes and disciplines in project-based efforts to serve the public through educational programs and exhibits, community partnerships, and collections stewardship activities.

The goals of the program are to advance a museum’s capacity to: serve people of all ages and backgrounds through experiential learning and discovery; respond to community needs; and manage and care for collections and their associated documentation.

The primary audiences for this program are museums, museum professionals, and the publics they serve.

Museums Empowered (ME) is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program that supports projects that use professional development and training to generate change and growth within museums of all types and sizes.

The goal of this program is to support staff learning and training to: provide museum staff with the skills to integrate digital technology into museum operations; strengthen the ability of museum staff to use evaluation as a tool to shape museum programs and improve outcomes; and strengthen and support museum staff as the essential part of a resilient organizational culture.

The primary audiences for this program are museums and museum professionals.

Inspire Grants for Small Museums (Inspire) is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program designed to support small museums of all disciplines in project-based efforts to serve the public through educational programs and exhibits, community partnerships, and collections stewardship activities.

The goal of the Inspire program is to build the capacity of small museums to provide museum services to their communities by supporting: the development of experiential learning and discovery in small museums; and the management and care of collections in small museums.

The primary audiences for this program are small museums, museum professionals, and the publics they serve.

See the Notice of Funding Opportunity for details of these grant programs' specific goals and objectives.

An applicant to Museums for America or its initiatives must meet geographic and governance criteria and qualify as one of the following types of organizations:
1. 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.
2. A public or private nonprofit agency that is responsible for the operation of a museum that meets these criteria.
Applicants should consult the Notices of Funding Opportunity for MFA and the special initiatives for more details.

The IMLS Director takes into account the input provided by the review process and makes final funding decisions consistent with the purposes of the agency’s mission and programs. Funded and non-funded applicants are notified by email after all deliberations are complete.

IMLS will not release information about the status of an application until the applications have been reviewed and all deliberations are concluded. IMLS expects to notify both successful and unsuccessful applicants of the final decisions by email by August 2026.