Help Protect Federal Funding for Minnesota Museums
Have you ever heard of the Institute of Museum and Library Services?
You’re not alone if you haven’t. For many people, IMLS is an unfamiliar acronym and an obscure federal agency.
But there’s a good chance that your family has benefited from this agency’s work.
Here at Minnesota Children’s Museum, we’re upset about last week’s presidential executive order that could eliminate IMLS.
Federal funding through IMLS directly affects Minnesota Children’s Museum and the audiences we serve.
Have you and your kids put your thinking to the test with the ball launchers and car wash in Forces at Play? IMLS funding played a critical role in creating this exhibit.
Have you found the museum’s Playful Parenting resources useful? The museum created much of that content with an IMLS grant intended to help parents support playful learning beyond our museum walls.
In recent years, an IMLS grant helped the museum rethink how adults experience our exhibits. If you enjoyed the Play Lounge and the Magic of Math in Creativity Jam, then you felt the impact of IMLS.
Looking ahead, the museum is seeking IMLS funding to design and build a traveling version of the popular Monsters exhibit we featured in summer 2024.
IMLS also is the driving force of a program that enables lower-income families to enjoy museums across the nation. Museums for All, a partnership between IMLS and the Association of Children’s Museums, encourages low-income families to visit museums and build lifelong museum habits. Participating museums, including Minnesota Children’s Museum, offer free or greatly reduced admission fees to qualifying families.
IMLS grants are competitive and merit-based. They stretch us to plan and dream bigger and work at a higher level. They allow the museum to reach more families and better serve our community.
Minnesota Children’s Museum is fortunate to have a variety of funding sources, including admission and membership fees, the state of Minnesota and a base of generous corporate and individual donors. We might not be able to do everything we want to do if IMLS grants go away, but we will survive.
However, smaller organizations throughout Minnesota and those in states where cultural funding at the state level is less robust may not be so lucky.
What You Can Do to Support IMLS (from the American Alliance of Museums):
Call your members of Congress. Find their phone numbers and a draft script here. Members of Congress are home this week, so be sure to contact their federal AND district offices!
Write your members of Congress. Get started with our template letter and personalize it with your stories! These emails have significantly more impact when you customize them and tell you story to your elected officials.
Write your state and local officials using our template letter.
Call your state and local officials. Find their phone numbers and a draft script here.