IMLS Sparks! Ignite grants

Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries and Museums ("Sparks Grants") are a special funding opportunity within the IMLS National Leadership Grants program. These small grants encourage libraries, museums, and archives to test and evaluate specific innovations in the ways they operate and the services they provide. 

Maximum Grant:  $25,000; Deadline:  February 1, 2013

Sparks Grants support the rapid prototyping and evaluation of promising and groundbreaking new tools, products, services, or organizational practices. You may propose activities or approaches that involve risk, as long as the risk is balanced by significant potential for improvement in the ways libraries and museums serve their communities. Sparks grantees are required to submit a short white paper with the results of their work to be publicly posted and shared with the field.

Examples of activities that may be funded by this program include, but are not limited to:

* rapid prototyping and testing of new ways to engage learners
* offering innovative new types of services or new service options
* exploring the potential of highly original, experimental collaborations
implementing new workflows or processes with potential for substantial cost savings
* addressing community challenges through new types of partnerships, services, processes, or practices
* developing and testing new tools or services that facilitate access, presentation, management, preservation, sharing, or use of museum and/or library collections