Twelve Greater Boston Organizations Receive $650,000 for “Culture for Change”
The Boston Foundation and the Barr Foundation today announced that twelve organizations will share $650,000 in grants to begin a new phase of Culture for Change. The program, originally piloted in 2008 by the Barr Foundation, is a unique approach to out-of-school time youth development. Centering on partnerships between professional artists and youth workers, Culture for Change enables youth to build fluency in an art form while both exploring and taking leadership on issues of racial justice that are of importance to them.
This year, the Barr Foundation partnered with the Boston Foundation to implement the next phase of the program, engaging a broad cross-section of Boston youth ages 15 to 21 who have few opportunities to access culturally rooted artistic programs and are eager to explore issues of racial justice.
The idea of Culture for Change emerged out of a year of research and focus groups involving youth workers, artists, and Boston youth that was sponsored by the Barr Foundation in 2007 and 2008. That research pointed to a trio of clearly-expressed needs: youth workers looking for more powerful tools, artists looking for positive ways to engage youth, and youth looking for more creative, meaningful out of school activities. By pairing youth workers with professional artists, Culture for Change offered a new way to meet all three needs at once. Barr helped Culture for Change test this idea as a pilot in 2008. Early results were so positive, the Foundation made a two-year grant in 2009 to help Culture for Change reach more youth.