Mayor Walsh announces 2015 Boston Cultural Council Grant winners

Today Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced that 137 organizations and institutions supporting arts and culture in the City of Boston were awarded $303,476 by the Boston Cultural Council (BCC). The grant winners represent the diversity of Boston’s arts community from the visual arts to theater, film and video, music, dance, and the humanities.  The BCC received 151 applications for the 2015 grant round.

“We’re working towards making Boston the country’s municipal arts leader, and we can’t do it without supportive and committed partners,” said Mayor Walsh. “Funding is often a hurdle for cultural organizations, and I’m proud that we doubled our Boston Cultural Council funds this year. Congratulations to all of the grant recipients, and thank you for your contributions to a thriving, healthy, innovative Boston.”

"Support from the Boston Cultural Council is crucial to organizations like ours, and helps us develop and implement the artistic and educational work that serves our community of artists, students, and audience," said Jennifer Johnson, co-director of the Charlestown Working Theater.

The BCC falls under the umbrella of the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, and annually distributes funds allocated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, to support innovative arts, humanities and interpretive sciences programming that enhances the quality of life in our city. In 2015 the MCC awarded the City of Boston $163,080, and Mayor Walsh nearly matched those funds. In 2014 the MCC awarded the City of Boston $144,419, with the City adding additional funding to distribute a total of $152,020 via the BCC to 55 of the 75 applicants.  

The BCC is comprised of 13 Boston residents appointed by Mayor Walsh to serve for up to six years each. The BCC reviews grant applications  annually  in the fall to evaluate the overall quality of proposed programming and its potential benefit to diverse audiences in neighborhoods throughout Boston.

Mayor Walsh believes the arts are crucial to both expressing and achieving the vision of a thriving, healthy, innovative Boston. Since taking office, Mayor Walsh has taken steps to improve the artist permitting process; revived the poet laureate program, naming Danielle Legros Georges Boston’s Poet Laureate; and appointed Julie Burros the City’s first Chief of Arts and Culture in more than two decades, elevating the conversation about the arts to the highest level of City government. Over the next year and a half the Chief of Arts and Culture will guide a cultural planning process for the city, which will build a long-term strategy for enriching and strengthening civic life through the arts.