Andover Chinese Charm Circle performs at Andover Cultural Council’s 2025 grant reception.
Since 2021, with the launch of our first-ever Racial Equity Plan (and subsequent equity plans), Mass Cultural Council has been working on internal and external steps we can take to support and encourage an anti-racist, equitable, and inclusive cultural sector in the Commonwealth. As part of our equity work, the Agency has committed to sharing our progress on this work regularly:
Public Affairs has made great strides towards one of the Agency’s access goals of making HireCulture.org more accessible. Improvements to the site for visitors using a screen reader were implemented in July.
SECTOR EDUCATION, SERVICES & ACHIEVEMENT
The Access & Inclusion Program Officer held monthly Access Office Hours including the following topics: Arts and Culture Self-Assessment, Access Planning, Assistive Technology, Venue/Producer Responsibilities, Workforce Development, Marketing and Communication, and Emergency Preparedness.
The Agency reviewed its FY25 grant making data and shared it with the Programs Committee in June. You can review the full presentation online, but the agency continues to provide strong support for the d/Deaf and Disability community, with room for improvement after seeing a slight dip in representation compared to FY24:
Chart: FY24 vs. FY25 Grants Awarded to Individuals Identifying as being Deaf/Disabled.
During one Disability Advisory Committee meeting, we took a deeper dive into the data to support the work of the committee. We looked at these numbers over time. Funding priorities for people who identify as having a disability were introduced in FY23:
Table: Percent of people who are Deaf or have a disability who applied and who received funding.
We compared these numbers to state demographic data to see how aligned we are.
After introducing the funding priority (FY23-25) our applicant pool representation and our grantee representation exceeded 11.5% in FY23 and FY24. FY25’s applicant pool representation fell below that to 9%.
We also reviewed applicant feedback surveys comparing aggregate responses from people who identify as Deaf or Disabled to people who don’t. While the responses largely aligned across most of the 4 questions, we identified an area where they are significantly different – the time it takes to complete grant applications.
39% of people with disabilities spent 3 hours or more on their application compared to 25% of people without disabilities (15% difference)
We identified several next steps to gather more information to understand the issue so we can identify and make improvements.
INTERNAL
Public Affairs and the Access & Inclusion Program Officer worked with a Screen Reader User Expert to develop a 2-part virtual staff training on creating accessible Word and PDF documents. One of the Agency’s access goals is to ensure that all externally facing documents prepared by staff will be checked for accessibility in much the same way as they would be reviewed for spelling and other editing considerations.
Informed by this training, Public Affairs updated the internal staff template documents to improve visual contrast and compatibly with screen readers.
Business Operations and the Access & Inclusion Program Officer worked together on an all-staff anti-ableist training led by EPIC to support staff learning and professional development.
