Mass Cultural Council has released a case statement on the benefits of arts and cultural funding to the state’s economy, communities, and the education of our young people – and what long-term reinvestment in Mass Cultural Council's work can accomplish.
Thanks to all who joined our 13 regional meetings across the state last summer, giving us an opportunity to talk about our strategic plan and Power of Culture messaging platform. Did you know that we’ve also created a messaging platform to help you make a compelling case for arts and culture in your community?
The Mass Cultural Council today announced finalists for the 2019 Commonwealth Awards, which honor exceptional achievement in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
A homeless man is curled up asleep on the grate by the theater. He’s there every night. Addicts hang out in the alley by the stage door. Theatergoers look away as they pass, annoyed by the intrusion on their lovely evening. Mandy Precious works at the theater. She doesn’t look away. She invites them in.
Governor Charlie Baker released a state budget proposal today that would invest $16.1 million in the arts, humanities, and sciences through Mass Cultural Council for the coming fiscal year. The Governor’s proposal would maintain current cultural funding levels for Fiscal Year 2020, which begins July 1.
We are on the front lines of a war on poverty. Not necessarily a shortage of material wealth, although its distribution in America is both a consequence and contributor to the current distress. The poverty our field confronts every day is that which Robert Kennedy confronted while running for President in 1968. He contrasted the wealth represented in the nation’s gross national product with the wealth necessary to sustain a democracy and make life worth living.
The Mass Cultural Council released a spending plan for the new fiscal year that will invest more than $14 million in a range of grant programs, services, and initiatives to support the arts, humanities, and sciences in communities across Massachusetts.
An overwhelming, bipartisan majority of state legislators voted to override a veto of a budget increase to the Mass Cultural Council for the new fiscal year. The overrides set the agency’s FY19 state appropriation at $16 million, ensuring increased investment in nonprofit cultural organizations, communities, artists, school and youth programs statewide.
Today the state Legislature approved a final budget for the new fiscal year that boosts funding for the arts, humanities, and sciences through Mass Cultural Council by $2 million.