Christian Kelly, Public Relations & Events Manager
Agency to award $26.7M in grants to bolster the Commonwealth’s creative and cultural sector
The governing body of Mass Cultural Council voted unanimously today to approve the Agency’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) spending plan, which allocates $34M to support the Commonwealth’s creative and cultural sector through various grants, initiatives, and advocacy to advance overall awareness of the sector. This plan is expected to fund a minimum of 2,500 grants across all programs, amounting to approximately $26.7M.
“I continue to be astonished and inspired by the incredible work of Massachusetts’ creative and cultural sector and am excited about how this spending plan will make critical public investments that support and foster its ongoing success in FY25 with creative, equitable, and inclusive programming and grant-making,” said Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director, Mass Cultural Council.
As the Commonwealth’s independent state arts agency, Mass Cultural Council is charged with bolstering the creative and cultural sector, thereby advancing economic vitality, supporting transformational change, and celebrating, preserving, and inspiring creativity across all Massachusetts communities. The FY25 spending plan is a roadmap by which Mass Cultural Council will offer financial and programmatic support to its various stakeholders, including cultural organizations, businesses, and collaboratives; individual artists, creatives, and culture bearers; schools, teaching artists, youth, and education programs; and cities and towns.
Mass Cultural Council’s spending plan is funded primarily through public dollars, including the Agency’s $26,850,000 FY25 state budget appropriation. This figure represents the highest-ever operating budget for the Agency.
In developing this year’s spending plan, Mass Cultural Council is beginning to implement the two new equity plans which took effect on July 1, and supplemented the Agency’s existing Racial Equity Plan.
The Agency’s equity plans and initiatives are underpinned by Mass Cultural Council’s FY24-26 strategic plan, which provides an overarching statement of goals:
- Advance the creative and cultural sector through building partnerships, identifying recommendations, and storytelling, both inside and outside of the sector.
- Build and support programmatic practices that advance equity, diversity, and inclusion through our services to the sector.
- Ensure that our internal systems, structures, and ways of working reflect our values and advance the sector’s needs.
“I’m so grateful that my colleagues on the Governing Council joined me in unanimously voting to adopt this spending plan,” said Marc Carroll, Chair, Mass Cultural Council. “These investments reflect our deep commitment to supporting the creative and cultural sectors that enrich our communities. This spending plan not only empowers artists and organizations, but also ensures that the arts continue to thrive and inspire across the Commonwealth.”
The Commonwealth’s Fiscal Year 2025 spans from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.
FY25 Spending Plan Highlights
Communities
Aligning with the new Native American & Indigenous People’s Equity Plan, this year Mass Cultural Council is working to design a new Tribal Cultural Council program. Modeled after the Local Cultural Council program, the vision is to partner with Tribal Governments to establish Tribal Cultural Councils, which will receive funding to be regranted to the benefit of their community and used to support cultural projects and initiatives of importance to the Tribe. This program is being developed in consultation with a Tribal Task Force that guided staff in developing the program guidelines. The spending plan allows for between 4 and 6 Tribal Cultural Councils to be formed this year, with each receiving $17,325 to regrant into their community.
In FY25, Mass Cultural Council will also invest $5.7 million into the Local Cultural Council (LCC) Program, the nation’s largest public grassroots arts support network. 329 LCCs provide annual arts and cultural grant funding to every community in Massachusetts through the efforts of more than 2,400 volunteer LCC members. They support local arts and history and sponsor community concerts and exhibitions. This year’s allocation represents a 3.6% increase over the previous fiscal year.
The Agency’s Community Initiative will again offer grants of $15,000 to the 55 state-designated Cultural Districts, to encourage the development and success of the districts, support programming and marketing initiatives, and foster local cultural preservation. Further, Mass Cultural Council anticipates up to 3 more cultural districts proposals that may be brought to the governing Council for designation this year. However, all new applications for Cultural District designation are temporarily paused until FY26 as the Agency takes the opportunity to review and redesign the program, to enhance economic growth for host communities through creativity and creative placemaking.
Artists & Creatives
Mass Cultural Council will again offer Grants for Creative Individuals in FY25. This program seeks to equitably advance creative expression throughout the Commonwealth, by providing unrestricted, $5,000 grants to Massachusetts artists, culture bearers, and creative practitioners. Applicants are expected to demonstrate achievement of creative expression and commitment to their artistic/cultural practice. The spending plan budgets $2,175,000 to award up to 435 grants through this program.
Additionally, Mass Cultural Council will continue to host HireCulture.org, our widely used creative employment job site as well as curate and publish weekly Artist Opportunities on the ArtSake blog, showcasing the creative, innovative work of Massachusetts artists.
Organizations
In FY25, Mass Cultural Council will make the first round of awards through the Operating Grants for Organizations program. This is the Agency’s new primary funding program to support cultural organizations and replaces the Cultural Investment Portfolio (CIP). The spending plan allocates a total of $7,200,000 for organizational support, a $111,200 increase over FY24.
The Festivals & Projects program will again award 740 $2,500 grants to organizations that offer cultural projects, programs, or festivals that provide community and/or public benefit and in some way incorporate the arts, humanities, or sciences.
Mass Cultural Council also expects to make $3.6 million available to provide Gaming Mitigation Fund assistance to nonprofit and municipal performing arts centers who host touring acts, as directed by state law. Awards from this program are used to help with the cost of touring artist fees.
Youth
In FY25, Mass Cultural Council will offer a new Creative Projects for Schools grant program. An expansion of the STARS Residencies grants, this program will provide funding for school-based projects, including residencies, that foster creative learning experiences in the arts, sciences, and humanities. The Agency anticipates making 300 $5,000 grants through this new program this year.
The Creative Youth Development and Arts Education team will continue to support quality, creative learning experiences in schools and community settings. This includes:
- YouthReach – supporting innovative creative youth development programs in the arts, humanities, and sciences that aim to make a better world by unleashing the potential of young people as creators, leaders, and change agents. This program will be funded at $1.87 million for FY25, the final year of a three-year grant cycle.
- Youth Arts Impact Network (YAIN) – Mass Cultural Council maintains a partnership with EdVestors to support the YAIN program which supports Creative Youth Development (CYD) organizations. In FY25, the Agency will continue support for this program through partnership with a consultant who will work with CYD organizations to ensure their continued success.
- Poetry Out Loud (POL) – a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, Mass Cultural Council will again contract with the Huntington Theatre Company to implement this program. POL Massachusetts continues to see increasing success, with FY24 participation up 29% over the previous year.
Equity, Inclusion & Access
In support of the continued success of our first-in-the-nation statewide arts prescriptions program, Mass Cultural Council will award $100,000 to Art Pharmacy this year. This is the second year of our partnership with Art Pharmacy, who is building a statewide network focused on the practice of arts-based social prescribing across Massachusetts. Last year, Art Pharmacy expanded the work Mass Cultural Council began with a pilot program in 2020 and brought Mass General Brigham onboard. This year’s funding will help Art Pharmacy continue to expand and scale this effort.
The Universal Participation (UP) Initiative’s Innovation Fund will receive an allocation of $470,000 to make up to 94 $5,000 awards. This funding supports planning and implementation of accessibility systems at organizations that have previously received a UP Designation from the Agency.
And, while the Agency continues to fold equity and access into all grant programs, Mass Cultural Council looks forward to making two additional grants to promote equity, inclusion, and access in the arts:
Mass Cultural Council staff will work to launch FY25 programs and initiatives throughout the fiscal year. To stay up to date on funding opportunities, sign up to receive the Agency’s monthly Power of Culture e-newsletter or follow @MassCultural on social media.