$927,500 in Boston Cultural Council grants awarded to 104 arts organizations

Mayor Michelle Wu and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, in collaboration with the Boston Cultural Council (BCC), today announced 104 arts and cultural organizations have been awarded grants totaling $927,500 through this year's Boston Cultural Council grant program.

“Our City is committed to ensuring that everyone has equitable access to creative expression and cultural representation,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “I am grateful to be supporting Boston’s arts and cultural organizations that align with the City’s mission to foster a community of learning and understanding through a vast array of artistic outlets.”

The Boston Cultural Council (BCC) works under the umbrella of the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture to annually distribute funds allocated by the City of Boston and the Mass Cultural Council for local arts and cultural programming that advances a vibrant, creative, and just Boston and enhances the quality of life in our city.

The BCC distributes grants for general operating support to organizations with budgets under $2 million that offer arts or cultural programming in Boston, and helps to ensure that the City’s grantmaking responds to the needs of the cultural community. 

Grantees receive $5,000, $7,500, and $10,000 grants depending on the organization’s budget size. This funding strategy aims to better support emerging to medium-sized organizations who typically do not have scaled fundraising initiatives to support their programming.

“BCC funding aims to foster long-term sustainability for the small to midsize arts organizations at the heart of Boston’s arts communities,” said Kara Elliott-Ortega, Chief of Arts and Culture. “We are excited to fund diverse creative organizations that are committed to innovation, creativity, equity and belonging in arts spaces across disciplines.”

The BCC focused on small to mid-sized organizations that uniquely serve the city's arts ecosystem and prioritize cultural diversity, economic diversity, inclusion, and equity, through both their staffing and audiences served. Nonprofit cultural organizations whose missions or programming are focused on music, film and video, traditional and folk art, visual art, theater, dance, humanities, literary arts, performing arts, social/civic practice, and multidisciplinary arts were eligible to apply as long as they were based in the City of Boston, or the majority of their programming was offered in Boston.

87.5% of grantees are based in Boston (for the remaining 12.5%, the majority of their programming takes place in Boston) and 13.5% are receiving Boston Cultural Council grants for the first time. More than $12.6 million of grantees’ total operating budgets goes toward paying artists. The breakdown of grantee organizations by discipline is as follows:

• Music (26.2%)
• Dance (17.7%)
• Visual Arts (15.3%)
• Performance Art (11.7%)
• Theater (10.9%)
• Other (8.1%)
• Social Practice Art (8.1%)
• Film & Video (6.9%)
• Literary Arts (6.1%)
• Media Arts (3.4%)
• Traditional Arts (2.9%)
• Crafts (1.7%)
• Design/Built Environment (1.7%)

"As a nonprofit that provides performing arts to multi-lingual and cultural Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and hard of hearing youth in Boston, access and inclusion is crucial,” said Jamie Robinson, Founder/Creative Director of DEAFinitely, Inc. “With funding from BCC, DEAFinitely can model inclusivity and equity in the arts through our Performance Crew to more diverse partners and audiences across the city."

"This support ignites our mission to empower youth through cultural expression, fostering creativity, and building bridges. With this grant, we can expand our reach, providing more opportunities for young minds to thrive, and contributing to the vibrant tapestry of Boston's cultural landscape,” said Musau Dibinga, Executive Director of OrigiNation Cultural Arts Center. “Funding for the arts isn't just about nurturing talent; it's about nurturing the soul of our city, fostering empathy, understanding, and unity."

The BCC Organizational Grant review process engaged MOAC’s Grant Advisory Team, a cohort of diverse stakeholders inclusive of community members and MOAC staff.

The aim of the Grant Advisory Team was to position community members as key decision makers on systems and structures that ultimately have the power to shape their lives and the well-being of their communities.

For more information, visit boston.gov/artsgrants. To see the full list of grantees, click here.