Charles Baldwin, Program Officer
This year Mass Cultural Council is proud to continue its investment in cultural organizations’ institutional accessibility.
Through our Universal Participation (UP) Initiative, $465,000 in Innovation Fund grants have been awarded to 93 UP Designated Organizations.
These organizations are committed to building and improving their institutional access and to enacting the four key characteristics of the UP Initiative:
An UP Innovation Fund award comes with one restriction: to be invested in access. How access is realized is determined by the priorities and capacities of each institution.
Candor over perfection is encouraged as part of Mass Cultural Council’s annual reporting requirements. Through reporting, the Agency can see emerging trends and patterns, and identify successful organizational improvements in staff training, physical and digital site evaluations, and community outreach.
Additionally, these reports reveal ongoing challenges UP Designated Organizations have with staff capacity, sustainable funding, information silos, and a changing social, recreational, and political landscape.
The 2025 UP Innovation Fund reports highlight an enduring, hardworking community, consistently listening, learning, and relying upon community participation. Humans are always at the center of this work. Success is achieved by recognizing the pace of the work as determined by a slow and steady commitment to trust building.
Several organizations joined an Inclusive Hiring cohort offered by Lincoln Center Education with Community Access to the Arts reporting, “a key part of our strategic plan is developing new programs for artists with developmental disabilities to step into leadership roles.” Berkshire Pulse said they plan to implement “the access ambassadors program modelled by Lincoln Center”.
UP Designated Organizations also hired evaluative experts, teaching artists, and counsel from the disability community. Of note, On With Living and Learning commissioned a new play, Disability on Trial by Jim Wice, and was able to provide cast stipends at just the right amount so as to not impact the players’ disability benefits.
The badge of UP Designation was a stepping stone to additional funding and support as reported by a number of organizations, including New Bedford Art Museum, Paul Revere House, Gnome Surf, and Grub Street.
A few organizations took broad, innovative action; the procurement of health insurance coverage, the development of a trauma informed curricula, and the creation of 3-D tactile interpretation of visual imagery.
And within the UP cohort, a few capital campaigns are nearing completion. Look for new or renovated accessible spaces at Community Music Center of Boston, Boston Lyric Opera, the Zieterion in New Bedford, and at the Hancock Shaker Village and Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in the Berkshires.
Additionally, the 2025 reports reveal the struggle of several UP Designated Organizations with operationalizing access into business and production models. A connected and well-informed individual should not be an institution’s solution to access.
Developing an Access Plan is one method for addressing this challenge. Access Plans outline a cross team, multi-department strategy. They are an institutional road map that identifies gaps, timelines, resources, and the humans supporting operational improvements. (Remember, this work is collective work!)
Organizations receiving 2026 UP Innovation Fund grants are required to develop an Access Plan.
Mass Cultural Council is hosting monthly conversations with experts and artists, supporting the goal of continual improvement and highlighting the humans and resources available for improving inclusion. Register – and share with a colleague: