Mass Humanities receives largest grant in their history for EMS initiative

Sept. 6, 2022 | Ryan Feyre
rfeyre@thereminder.com

NORTHAMPTON – Local nonprofit Mass Humanities, located on Bridge Street in Northampton, received a $700,000 for their Expanded Massachusetts Stories (EMS) initiative.

According to Sara Seng, the leader of communications for Mass Humanities, this is the largest grant awarded to the organization in their history.

The Boston-based Barr Foundation awarded the grant to Mass Humanities to advance their EMS initiative, which aims to generate “more inclusive histories of the people and ideas that shape the commonwealth.”

According to Mass Humanities Executive Director Brian Boyles, the EMS initiative launched last year because they saw a trend amongst organizations they usually fund in developing narratives about people and ideas in Massachusetts that normally are not part of the mainstream.

“We fund a wide variety of organizations, but increasingly, community-based oral history projects, digital media projects that bring in new stories, museum exhibitions were all striving to get up onto the walls, or on websites, or in documentary films, voices that hadn’t been counted,” said Boyles. “And we wanted to get behind that work.”

Twenty-two grants were awarded for this initiative in 2021, and Mass Humanities plans to announce the second round of grants in a few weeks. The Barr Foundation funding allows Mass Humanities to award up to 20 new grants annually in 2022 and 2023 for projects specifically focused on the history and experiences of communities of color in Massachusetts.

“We know that the stories being generated are relevant to the local communities, but they’re also things that people can learn from around Massachusetts,” said Boyles. “So, we feel that it is our responsibility to develop platforms and media partnerships that allow those stories to get out there that the grantee appreciates and the way more of us can learn from.”

Any nonprofit organization is eligible for this money, according to Boyles, but there is a priority to administer the grant to projects that are operated by communities of color. “We’re really looking at organizations with smaller budgets,” said Boyles. “We are also giving special attention to organizations who have never received funds from Mass Humanities because we want to support to broaden. We know that there are stories that need to be told in different types of communities across the state.”

A project can receive a maximum funding of $20,000, according to Boyles.

Organizations in the past who have received this grant money for EMS include Pittsfield’s Berkshire County Historical Society, Northampton’s Collaborative for Education Services and Springfield’s “The Performance Project.”

People can learn more about Mass Humanities and the EMS initiative by visiting their website: https://masshumanities.org/mh-awards-first-expand-mass-stories-grants/.

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