The federal government is pulling museum grants from cultural institutions nationwide, including many in Minnesota.
In April, the Institute of Museum and Library Services — the main federal funder of museums and libraries — told the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Walker Art Center, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and the Ramsey County Historical Society their grants would be cut.
The IMLS pulled $625,000 in grants from the Science Museum, $250,000 from the Walker, $248,929 from the Mille Lacs Band and $212,714 from the Ramsey County Historical Society.
“This is definitely unprecedented,” said Christopher Stevens, the Walker chief of advancement. “It’s pretty devastating, and it’s discouraging that the federal government, which makes a relatively tiny investment in the arts, is willing to cut that investment.”
According to Chad Roberts, director of the Ramsey County Historical Society, “The biggest thing is: It’s not really ever happened before where the federal government has made this kind of a promise to a museum with a grant agreement and then just decided not to do it.”
“It really shakes your confidence in any kind of funding promise that gets made,” he said.
The cuts are the result of President Donald Trump’s March 14 executive order “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.” The order called for the IMLS and other government entities to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
The IMLS then put more than 80% of its staff on administrative leave and curtailed and terminated hundreds of grants across the country.
In total, the IMLS awarded $1,544,319 in 2024 museum grants to Minnesota institutions. However, it is unclear how much funding has been lost in Minnesota, as the cuts could also impact grants issued in previous years that were designated for multi-year projects. This also does not account for the cuts to grants issued to libraries statewide.
The IMLS rescinded a grant awarded to the Walker in late 2024 to help the Minneapolis museum “reduce barriers for visitors with disabilities by planning and implementing interpretive tools and programs for learners with disabilities.”
Stevens, who has been with the Walker for over three decades, said he’s never seen cuts like this.
“We’re deeply saddened that the federal government, which made a commitment to support that work and has contributed more than $3 million to the Walker over the decades, is now going back and canceling a contract and work we thought would benefit people that enjoy coming to art museums,” he said.
Fossil, climate, collaboration projects cut at Science Museum
The grant cuts will affect four projects and potentially 28 staff positions at the Science Museum in St. Paul. These include:
A data and community engagement project on climate action
Digitization of the museum’s Chiapas Maya Ethnographic Collection, which includes collaborating with Maya communities of Chiapas, Mexico
A professional development DEI collaboration with 20 smaller and underserved museums in the Midwest
The second phase of digitizing the Wannagan Creek fossil collection from North Dakota, including 8,000 fossils that date back 60 million years and document an ancient ecosystem
Alison Rempel Brown (Courtesy of the Science Museum of Minnesota)
“They said, upon further review, IMLS has determined that your grant is unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and the IMLS program,” said Alison Rempel Brown, the president of the Science Museum. “I cannot guess what’s going through their heads.”
Brown said the cut to the Wannagan Creek fossil project is particularly surprising because it is the most focused on what has traditionally been considered “pure science.”
“We have a very world-class collection from that region,” she said. “That’s a critical collection to help us understand how climate changed in the past, and some lessons we can learn as the climate continues to change going forward. If it’s not digitized, scientists around the world don’t understand that we have this collection and how they can use it to continue their scientific work.”
The IMLS cuts are unusual, Brown said, because Congress created the agency in 1996 through bipartisan support.
“Congress realized how important museums and libraries are for creating community, helping provide support, not just in cities, but rural areas as well,” she said.
Local employees, vendors impacted
The Ramsey County Historical Society in St. Paul had received a 2024 IMLS grant for $212,714 to digitize 2.5 million county assessor field cards for residential properties from 1915-2007.
Director Chad Roberts said these digital records could then be used by historians, scholars and policymakers to study the connection between racial housing covenants, redlining and zoning, and could be a resource for individuals to research the history of their homes and neighborhoods.
“Well, we’ve got a $212,000 budget hole to fix now, so yeah, that’s going to have an impact,” he said. “Of course, we were upset. This is a project that’s got a total price tag of $450,000. Federal money was a good chunk of being able to get it done in the next three years, and that’s just not going to be possible.”
The grants are “reimbursal,” Roberts said, so the grantees spend the money and then request the funds. The Historical Society has already funded $15,000 worth of work on the project.
“That hasn’t been paid yet, and we’re not sure it’s going to be,” she said. “The communications coming out of the Institute of Museum and Library Services have not been consistent.”
Roberts said this will impact employees and contracted vendors.
“In our case, it’s a small business,” she said. The grant funded “a couple of jobs over a few years. That’s just us. It has that impact real close to home.”
Kris Jensen, a press representative with the Mille Lacs Band, confirmed that the IMLS cut its $248,929 grant, too.
Jensen said the grant supported the preservation and perpetuation of the language and cultural practices of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. This would include making recorded stories from elders and community members available to the public.
The Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota received a 2024 IMLS grant for $249,918 to photograph 1,300 objects and create an online database. Talia Milavetz, a public relations strategist for the university, said they are currently unaware of any changes to the grant.
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Christopher Stevens said the Walker Art Center will request an IMLS review of termination, which must be submitted by May 12.
Minnesota has joined 20 other states in a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop cuts to the IMLS and other agencies.
“We’re hoping that some kind of a coalition of people will push back, but that will take a long time. In the short term, we won’t have the money to serve the public as we were planning to do,” Stevens said.
“In the big picture of things, why you would target libraries and art museums for funding seems puzzling and doesn’t seem to be solving any real problems.”
