Advocacy Alert – March 17, 2023

In this Alliance Advocacy Alert:

• Contact Congress: Urge Your Representative to Support OMS Funding Now!
• President’s Budget Request for the Federal Cultural Agencies
• Ask Your Legislators: Co-sponsor Charitable Giving Act

Contact Congress: Urge Your Representative to Support OMS Funding Now!

Representatives Paul Tonko (D-NY), Andy Barr (R-KY), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) are circulating a letter to their House colleagues calling for robust funding for the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

It just takes a couple of minutes to use our template and ask your Representative to sign on. The letter is a key measure of legislators’ support for federal funding for museums, and it is especially important now to build on our momentum from Museums Advocacy Day. We also urge museum advocates who participated in congressional meetings during Museums Advocacy Day to follow up with their congressional contacts and encourage their Representative to sign on. Multiple touches may be required to secure a sign-on.

Please contact your Representative today!

Legislators need to hear from you–the people they represent–about how their decisions affect museums and museum people.

President’s Budget Request

The Biden Administration released its  FY 2024 budget proposal, which requests level funding for the IMLS Office of Museum Services at $55.5 million and requests an additional $4 million each to $211 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The President’s request is just the beginning of the annual budget and appropriations process. The museum field must continue to work with its allies in Congress on both sides of the aisle to ensure support for museums is expanded. We are committed to helping ensure that all legislators understand that museums are essential community infrastructure, and will continue to bolster the efforts of thousands of museum advocates nationwide.

Ask Your Legislators: Co-sponsor Charitable Giving Act

On March 1, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced the Charitable Act (S.566) that would create a non-itemizer, universal charitable deduction – one of our priority “asks” on Museums Advocacy Day. Specifically, the bill would enable taxpayers who take the standard deduction (about 88% of taxpayers) to deduct charitable donations of up to one-third of the standard deduction, about $4,600 for individuals and $9,200 for married couples based on the current standard deduction. The bill was introduced with 10 bipartisan cosponsors, including lead sponsors and AAM Museums Advocacy Day Congressional Awardees Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and James Lankford (R-OK). A House version of the measure is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks. Please contact your Senators and urge them to co-sponsor the Charitable Act and ask your Representative to do so once the House bill is introduced.

Contact Congress: Co-sponsor the Charitable Act

Use our advocacy templates, tools, and resources to make your voice heard today and stay tuned for continued updates from AAM for important and timely opportunities to advocate this spring.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Your steadfast advocacy efforts make a huge difference in building needed support for museums and museum professionals.

Now is a great time to make a plan to advocate for museums throughout 2023. Use our year-round advocacy ideas to get started today.

Visit http://www.aam-us.org/advocacy to access all of AAM’s advocacy resources.