Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries

The summary for the Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

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

Successful proposals will address problems, challenges, or needs of broad relevance to libraries and/or archives. A proposed project should test a specific, innovative response to the identified problem and present a plan to make the findings widely and openly accessible.

To maximize the public benefit from federal investments in these grants, the Sparks! program will fund only projects with the following characteristics:

Broad Potential Impact—You should identify a specific problem or need that is relevant to many libraries and/or archives and propose a testable and measurable solution. Proposals must demonstrate a thorough understanding of current issues and practices in the project’s focus area and discuss its potential impact within libraries and/or archives. Proposed innovations should be widely adoptable or adaptable.

Significant Innovation—The proposed solution to the identified problem must offer strong potential for non-incremental, significant advancement in the operation of libraries and/or archives. You must explain how the proposed activity differs from current practices or takes advantage of an unexplored opportunity, and the potential benefit to be gained by this innovation.

Federal Grant Title:	Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries
Federal Agency Name:	Institute of Museum and Library Services
Grant Categories:	Arts Humanities
Type of Opportunity:	Discretionary
Funding Opportunity Number:	SPARKS-LIBRARIES-FY15
Type of Funding:	Grant
CFDA Numbers:	45.312
CFDA Descriptions:	National Leadership Grants
Current Application Deadline:	Feb 2, 2015
Original Application Deadline:	Feb 2, 2015
Posted Date:	Dec 1, 2014
Creation Date:	Dec 1, 2014
Archive Date:	Mar 4, 2015
Total Program Funding:	$250,000
Maximum Federal Grant Award:	$25,000
Minimum Federal Grant Award:	$10,000
Expected Number of Awards:	12
Cost Sharing or Matching:	No

Applicants Eligible for this Grant: Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)
Additional Information on Eligibility: An eligible applicant must be:

either a unit of state or local government or private nonprofit organization that has tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code;
located in one of the fifty states of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of Palau; and
one of the six types of organizations listed below:
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. Eligible libraries include public libraries, elementary and secondary school libraries, college and university libraries, research libraries and archives that are not an integral part of an institution of higher education and that make publicly available library services and materials that are suitable for scholarly research and not otherwise available, and private or special libraries that have been deemed eligible to participate in this program by the state in which the library is located.
An academic or administrative unit, such as a graduate school of library and information science, which is a part of an institution of higher education through which it would make application.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Link to Full Grant Announcement: http://www.imls.gov/applicants/detail.aspx?GrantId=19
Grant Announcement Contact: Tim Carrigan Senior Library Program Officer 202-653-4639 [email protected] Sandra Toro Senior Library Program Officer 202-653-4662 [email protected]
[email protected]

Institute of Museum and Library Services 202-653-4629
Similar Government Grants: • National Leadership Grants for Museums (2024); • National Leadership Grants for Libraries (2024); • National Leadership Grants for Museums (2023); • National Leadership Grants for Libraries (2023); • National Leadership Grants for Libraries (2022); • Connecting to Collections - State Planning Grants; • National Leadership Grants; • Build and Share Knowledge of Good Practice
More Grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services: • Native American Library Services Enhancement Grants (2024); • Native Hawaiian Library Services Grants (2024); • 21st Century Museum Professionals Program (2024); • Native American Library Services Basic Grant (2024); • American Latino Museum Internship and Fellowship Initiative (2024)