Economic/Community Development
Museums and libraries are community anchors that drive economic and community development.
Partnership: Building Sustainable Communities
IMLS is partnering with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to better understand how museums and libraries are working to support comprehensive community revitalization. Through this partnership, IMLS will analyze existing cases and report back on best practices and strategies for successful museum-library and community collaborations fostering revitalization.
Search the Awarded Grants database for grants to programs that strengthen economic/community development (issue areas have only been assigned to grants awarded since FY 2009)
Economic/community development content on the IMLS Web site:
The Children’s Museum of Manhattan is bringing the museum experience into public housing developments with a model program that includes early childhood literacy elements, health exhibits, and educational programming.
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When the Queens Museum of Art wanted to create an arts education program for immigrant adults, its location in the nation’s most diverse county played a big role in the process. To find a model program, it looked to the Queens Library, which had been providing cultural programming to new immigrants for 30 years.
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To address two workforce training needs in Orlando, Fla.—technical skills and small business smarts—the Orange County Library System created the Grow Your Business program, which offered classroom and online courses in three languages.
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Children feed alphabet letters to a talking baby dragon, drive a New York City fire truck, paint on a six-foot art wall, and crawl through a challenge course in PlayWorks™ at the Children's Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) in New York.
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Five museums and five libraries have won the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor for institutions that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities.
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