We may, on occasion, make an award outside of our annual grant competitions.  This enables us to further our mission and strategic goals through projects or special initiatives with partners, activities and timelines that may not be possible to accomplish through our established annual grant cycles.  These awards allow us to be nimble, responsive and/or proactive in meeting the museum and library services needs of the American public.  Such awards are made on an infrequent basis and are reserved for projects that have the potential to advance the profession by impacting multiple museums and libraries, and/or museum or library professionals, and with which the agency generally will have significant input and engagement.