2004 Grants

Associated Grant Makers received a membership renewal at the $1,000 level. AGM provides a resource library and a Massachusetts Grantmakers’ Directory that is available on-line. The organization also offers numerous skill-building and issue related seminars for donors and nonprofit organizations. Through its “Giving New England” program, AGM is a leader in promoting philanthropy in New England.

Bridges Program, Inc. d/b/a/ Discover Roxbury was awarded a grant of $3,500. This small and relatively new organization seeks to educate people about Roxbury’s cultural heritage and vibrant community through a program of guided interactive neighborhood tours. The grant will support preparation of training materials for tour guides, incorporating an overview of Roxbury art and history, as well as brief descriptions of local sites and landmarks. Discover Roxbury is part of a growing movement that celebrates the rich diversity of Boston neighborhoods and institutions, providing a complement to the City’s better understood white-dominated history.

The Children's Museum received $4,000 in support of “Boston Black Weekends in the Art Studio”, part of a new permanent exhibit: “Boston Black…A City Connects”. The program, a collaboration of Museum art educators and community artists, introduces children to the creative arts, linking them to local black artists and arts organizations. Anti-bias attitudes and behaviors are promoted through the sharing of arts traditions and experiences. Over the years, the Trustees have sought opportunities to increase minority attendance at Boston’s cultural venues and this creative program is consistent with addressing that goal. In addition, it provides an added benefit of exposing parents and children of all races to the cultural diversity present within Boston’s black community.

The City School, an after-school, weekend and summer program that develops leadership and communication skills of a diverse group of community youth concerned with social justice, was awarded a $3,500 grant for its Grad Leaders United project. Sixteen graduates of prior City School programs are selected for this program through a series of competitive interviews. The racial, ethnic and class diversity of participants is a crucial aspect of the learning process. This intense multi-racial group program equips participants with the experience and practical skills they will need to become leaders of the future.

Community Foundation for Greater New Haven received $1,000 in sponsorship support for the New England Conference on Black Philanthropy held in June 2004 in New Haven, Connecticut.

Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, Inc. was given a $1,000 grant in support of a program of Dinner and Dialogues, a cross cultural pairing of urban and suburban religious congregations working toward solving social issues in urban areas. The Dialogues focus on metropolitan issues consistent with those explored by the Harvard Civil Rights Project; sixty members representing nearly twenty congregations will participate in this series of seven programs.

Fenway High School one of Boston’s first pilot high schools, was awarded a grant of $3,000. The School has been widely recognized for its success in creating a harmonious learning environment for its racially, culturally and academically diverse body of students, many of whom enter below grade level and graduate prepared for college. The grant will help fund the creation and implementation of “Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity”, a tenth grade student advisory curriculum that will structure personal discussions about race, class and gender. The project seeks to foster a spirit of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation by developing awareness among students of how their beliefs and attitudes have been shaped by their experience with racism and other oppressive social constructs. Students will develop the tools and skills to listen without defensiveness or judgment, enabling them to become more competent and confident to deal with issues of racism.

The Food Project, Inc. received a $1,000 grant to help support its diversity training program. The Project has nearly 2,000 youth and adult participants, 60% urban and 40% suburban, who work together, on farms in Lincoln and Dorchester, to grow over 250,000 pounds of fresh produce. Their harvest is distributed to area charities and sold to the community through farmers markets and a community-supported agriculture delivery business. The diversity training program engages youth from different races and economic backgrounds in discussions and workshops focusing on race, gender, class and oppression. These youth participants will acquire leadership skills enabling them to co-lead peer workshops.

Harvard University Civil Rights Project received $25,000, the second and final installment of a two-year commitment to fund the Metro-Boston Equity Initiative, a comprehensive study of race in the City of Boston. The study produced a series of reports on racial change and inequities in housing, education and employment, including an attitudinal survey of residents in the metropolitan Boston area. The results of the study were presented at the Foundation’s 2004 Annual Meeting, discussed in greater detail elsewhere in this report, and are available on online at www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu. The study has attracted a great deal of attention among community groups, local and state leaders, media and civil rights organizations. It has also furnished the Trustees and other funders with data and perspective as they consider future grant applications.

Hyde Square Task Force, Inc. was awarded $3,500 in support of Ritmo en Accion (Rhythm in Action). This dance program serves youth in the Hyde/Jackson Square area of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, a low-income and predominately black and Latino neighborhood. Minority teens receive weekly instruction in Latin dance, including salsa, which they will teach to elementary and middle school students in the agency’s after-school programs. In addition, teen and student dancers present public performances for diverse audiences across Boston. Participating youth become cultural stewards, using dance to expose others, both youth and adult, to the richness of Latino cultures and the positive energy of Boston teenagers.

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law of the Boston Bar Association received a $2,000 grant in support of Boston-based activities of the November 2004 Voters’ Legal Protection Project. The mission of the Project is voter education, including identification and resolution of discriminatory practices that historically have prevented minorities from exercising their right to vote. The grant subsidized operational costs of an Election Day telephone bank, staffed by attorneys. Serving as poll monitors, trained members of the community were able to identify problems, contact attorneys for guidance and, if required, seek immediate injunctive relief in court. The telephone bank was a crucial aspect of the Project, as voter turnout and education efforts can be effective only if individuals are able to address discriminatory practices quickly and on-site.

Lesson One Foundation, Inc. a conflict resolution and violence prevention program, received $2,000 to implement their curriculum in two Boston public schools, one in East Boston and the other in Dorchester. Using a sequential and concrete series of activities and structured skills, the program helps students achieve self-control, self-confidence and responsibility for their own actions, as well as respect for diversity and cooperation with others. In addition, their teachers acquire skills to create a positive and consistent classroom environment that facilitates teaching and learning.

Massachusetts Advocates for Children was awarded $3,500 to support the Boston Racial Justice Project. The Project provides assistance to Latino parents of school children with disabilities by advising them about their legal rights under special education laws, including information about what constitutes a legal disability. Parents also will be offered advocacy and organizing skills and, in come cases, provided with legal representation. The project emphasizes access to special education programs and works to overcome the effects of racial discrimination and social isolation on this particularly vulnerable population of minority children. This is a positive approach to addressing discriminatory barriers to information about the availability of resources and legal rights, which impact urban poor and people of color disproportionately.

Massachusetts Voter Education Network (MassVOTE) received $5,000 toward Boston-based activities of a Campaign for Racial Justice at the Ballot Box project. Potential Election Day misinformation and misconduct will be mitigated through voter education and poll monitors. The Campaign aims to increase political engagement and power of Massachusetts urban communities of color by creating a network of trained poll monitors to target precincts where potential problems could exist.

Organizing Leadership and Training Center, Inc., on behalf of the Commonwealth Legislative Seminar on behalf of the Commonwealth Legislative Seminar, received $3,000 to provide legislative advocacy training to leaders of Boston’s communities of color and immigrant populations. This program aims to broaden participation in the legislative process by developing leadership among under-represented constituencies. In addition to receiving training in the legislative process, participants will be introduced to some of the key leaders of State government. These community leaders will emerge from the program with new skills and a greater capacity to engage citizens who are often silent in the political conversation and process.

Women Express, publisher of the national magazine Teen Voices, works to further social and economic justice by empowering teenage and young adult women in Boston. The agency received a $2,500 grant for a diversity training initiative for its staff and board, to educate them on various issues of diversity. Diversity training will enhance the agency’s ability to lead the organization, foster a shared understanding among staff, board members, and youth participants, and will result in a diversified volunteer group that more closely reflects its constituency.

Patriots' Trail Girl Scout Council was awarded a $1,000 grant in support of a diversity outreach initiative to increase Hispanic participation in the Council at both youth and adult levels. “Conexiones”, a new outreach serving Hispanic girls in the Greater Boston area, is designed to increase the visibility of this community within the entire metropolitan area. In addition to strengthening programming and providing culturally relevant outreach to girls and adults, training will be offered to help the Council’s many adult volunteers better understand and serve the Hispanic community.

Project: Think Different was given a $3,500 grant in support of its work with local youth, giving them opportunities to use film, video and music as a way of expressing thoughts on social issues and increasing civic engagement. At present, the project has two regular programs: “Urban Youth Update”, a quarterly half-hour television program on Boston’s Channel 7, where six to eight youth discuss a selected social topic, and “Active Arts Youth Conference”, an annual three-day conference to educate, inspire and mobilize the hip-hop generation, featuring issues such as race, homophobia, voter rights and movement building. This grant will provide operating support for this new organization, enabling it to continue to organize new projects and develop its infrastructure.

The Public Conversations Project, Inc. received a $2,000 grant toward the Boston youth component of the Greater Boston Faith Quilts Project. A group of quilt-makers of different faiths will collaborate to create fifty quilts. Working together in this creative and cooperative endeavor, quilt-makers will have a structured opportunity to share inter-faith and inter-cultural understandings. The project will be documented on film and the quilts will be exhibited from time to time in various locales, culminating in a month-long exhibition in April of 2006 that will be part of the City-wide celebration of Faith, the Arts and Community.

Social Capital, Inc. was awarded a $3,500 grant to support Dorchester Youth Civic Engagement, a program that fosters new approaches to developing active citizenship and leadership skills among low-income youth. This grant helps support a Youth Council and its youth-led mini-grant program. Ten local teenagers make up the Council which disburses grants to local young people who have submitted proposals for community service projects. While this project does not directly address the issue of racism, it promises to unite young people of different backgrounds from the diverse Dorchester communities of Codman Square and Fields Corner.

University of Massachusetts Foundation f/b/o Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth was awarded $3,000 toward the Youth Expression program, a new performance program aimed at breaking stereotypes of Asian Pacific American Youth and helping educate others about the diversity of experiences of these youth. Participants will meet biweekly with an adult facilitator to write and develop performance pieces, using a variety of styles and genres, as a way of challenging stereotypes and sharing their very varied experiences.

The YWCA of Boston was awarded a $4,000 grant in support of the Youth Voice Collaborative Program for Boston Youth. The grant will fund components dealing with issues of race. This innovative program for middle and high school students provides free, quality and engaging after-school activities designed to improve academic performance and critical thinking skills of middle and high school age urban youth. Using media as the engaging tool, the program helps youth analyze media messages and images through the lens of race and gender. Participants are assisted in creating their own media projects. By increasing critical thinking skills of urban youth, the program is able to defuse the power of racial and gender stereotypes in the real and virtual worlds. Youth are exposed to the ways in which various media present stereotypes, and how they condition us to view race and gender in inaccurate, hurtful and harmful ways.