CAP Eligibility

Program Eligibility

To be eligible for CAP, institutions must meet ALL of the eligibility criteria below.

  • It must be either a unit of state, local, or tribal government or be a private nonprofit organization with tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code.
  • It must be located in one of the 50 States of the United States of America, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of Palau.
  • It must be organized on a permanent basis for educational or aesthetic purposes.
  • It must own tangible objects (animate or inanimate) and make them available to the general public through exhibition and/or research on a regular basis. 
  • It must employ at least one full-time person (or the full-time equivalent of one or more staff members), whether paid or unpaid, whose responsibilities relate to the institution’s governance, administration, programming, and collections management.
  • It must be possible for assessors to review all of its collections and facilities (including any off-site storage) in a two-day site visit

Only institutions that primarily identify as museums are eligible. Museums of all kinds may apply for a CAP assessment. These include:

  • Aquariums*
  • Arboretums*
  • Art museums
  • Botanical gardens*
  • Children’s/Youth museums
  • General museums (those having two or more significant disciplines, such as a museum of art and natural history)
  • Historic houses/sites
  • History museums (including those housed in historic buildings)
  • Natural history/anthropology museums
  • Nature centers
  • Planetariums
  • Science/Technology museums
  • Specialized museums (limited to a single distinct subject, such as a maritime museum)
  • Zoological parks*
 

* Botanical gardens and arboretums may use CAP to assess the preservation needs of both their living and non-living collections. Institutions with fully surveyed living animal collections (such as those accredited by the AZA) may use CAP to assess the needs of their non-living collections and the animals’ physical conditions and habitats. 

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