Grant Details

Eligibility Details

Eligible applicants are one of the following:

• Museum Entity - To be eligible as a Museum Entity, you must be an organization that meets all three of the following criteria:
  • 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;
  • 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
  • You must qualify as one of the following:
    • 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.
    • An organization or association that engages in activities designed to advance the well being of museums and the museum profession;
    • An institution of higher education, including public and nonprofit universities; or
    • 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) above may apply on behalf of the museum.
• Library Entity - To be eligible as a Library Entity, you must:
  • be either a unit of State or local government or be a private, nonprofit organization that has nonprofit status under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, and
  • 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.

Eligible applicants must further qualify as one of the following six types of organizations:

1. A library or a parent organization, such as a school district, a municipality, a State agency, or an academic institution, that is responsible for the administration of a library.
2. An academic or administrative unit, such as a graduate school of library and information science that is part of an institution of higher education through which it would make application;
3. A digital library, if it makes library materials publicly available and provides library services, including selection, organization, description, reference, and preservation, under the supervision of at least one permanent professional staff librarian;
4. A library agency that is an official agency of a State or other unit of government and is charged by the law governing it with the extension and development of public library services within its jurisdiction;
5. A library consortium that is a local, statewide, regional, interstate, or international cooperative association of library entities that provides for the systematic and effective coordination of the resources of eligible libraries, as defined above, and information centers that work to improve the services delivered to the clientele of these libraries; or
6. A library association that exists on a permanent basis; serves libraries or library professionals on a national, regional, State, or local level; and engages in activities designed to advance the well-being of libraries and the library profession.

Deadline Details

Applications were to be submitted by June 12, 2020. This is anticipated to be a one-time funding opportunity.

Award Details

Up to $13,800,000 is available in total funding for 90 awards. Awards range from $25,000 to $500,000 each. Project period is from September 1, 2020 through August 31, 2022. Project activities may be carried out for up to two years.