Program Overview:
Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program. It is designed to support projects that use the transformative power of professional development and training to generate systemic change within museums of all types and sizes.
Museums Empowered has four project categories:
Digital Technology: Provide museum staff with the skills to integrate digital technology into museum operations.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Support museum staff in providing inclusive and equitable services to people of diverse geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds and to individuals with disabilities.
Evaluation: Strengthen the ability of museum staff to use evaluation as a tool to shape museum programs and improve outcomes.
Organizational Management: Strengthen and support museum staff as the essential part of a resilient organizational culture.
1. 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;
2. 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
3. Must qualify as one of the following:
(a) 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.
(b) 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), applying on behalf of the museum.
Native American tribal organizations may apply if they otherwise meet the above eligibility requirements.