Professional Development Grants available for New York state museums

The Museum Program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), in partnership with CNY Arts, will award over $32,000 in Professional Development Grants to New York State-based museums, historic sites, and museum service organizations in 2019. With these grants NYSCA provides opportunities for museum professionals to attend
conferences and workshops or to visit other museums and meet with colleagues across New York State.

Awards of up to $500 will be available to support travel and/or registration fees for single or multiple participants. Each museum or museum service organization may submit only one application; however, a single application may include multiple people and/or multiple events for no more than $500 total. No individual may appear on more than one application.Eligible museums must generally be chartered by New York State. If your museum is not chartered, please contact Kristin Herron, Program Director at NYSCA prior to applying. Professional development grants may not be sought by staff of New York State historic sites, SUNY or CUNY museums, nor can the travel be related to other state agency work.

Examples of eligible professional development include:
• Travel to view exemplary exhibitions, collections management projects or interpretive programs in New York State.
• Travel to conduct research in New York State related to your institution’s collections or exhibitions.
• Travel and registration fees for professional conferences or workshops in New York State.
• Conference registration fees for regional and national museum conferences.
• Registration fees for online training courses, in-person classes and professional courses.
• Invite an expert/facilitator to work with your staff/board on a specific issue.

Professional Development Grants cannot support out-of-state travel expenses such as mileage, airfare or hotel. Nor can they be applied towards meal and entertainment expenses whether traveling in-state or out-of-state.

Click here to read more about the application process: http://www.nysca.org/downloads/files/2019_Museum_PDGrants.pdf

REMINDER: Both of MAAM’s conferences this year are in New York State (Building Museums February 27-March 1, 2019 in Brooklyn and the Annual Meeting October 16-18, 2019 in the Hudson Valley at the Thayer Hotel at West Point).