Mellon welcomes inquiries from organizations whose work aligns with our current strategies

“El Portal del Yunque: Presence and Lichen” by Ivelisse Jiménez is part of the NATURA exhibition placed along the Science and Conservation Trail of El Portal visitor center in the El Yunque National Forest. The artwork brings lichen to enormous scale using acrylic sheeting and paint.

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Natural Selections

Kootéeyaa Deiyí Totem Pole Project 

Two totem poles dot the shoreline and point visitors to Kootéeyaa Deiyí, the Totem Pole Trail, in Juneau, Alaska.

Gif of an intricately painted totem pole in red and green set in front of a harbor with four cruise ships anchored in it

Explore Kootéeyaa Deiyí, the growing totem trail on Alaska’s waterfront

We are able to collectively get all this history together and make context out of it, but we rely on our community for its history.

In centering voices that have often been sidelined and silenced, we challenge the status quo.

The Legacy of Black Life on the North Shore

Father and Son Banquet at the Emerson YMCA, circa 1917. Photo: courtesy of Helen Cromer Cooper

A gathering of African American men and boys seated at a formal dinner in the early 20th century

The Nation’s First Municipal Reparations Program, Grounded in Black History

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Creativity and Cultures in the Borderlands

We want to provide access for those people who might want to but don’t know how, don't have the resources, or don't know where else to go.

Archiving goes personal: Preservation of personal media collections is a growing need as older formats deteriorate and AV equipment becomes harder to find, to own, and to operate. Public libraries support patrons in digitizing a range of home movies, photos, and family collections.  

A brown wooden desk and bookshelf containing various items such as books, records, and vintage posters

From Appalachia to the American Southwest, local libraries are saving personal histories one public memory lab at a time.

At the Library, in the Lab, Saving History

Cleo Parker Robinson Dance is Rocky Mountain Region hub for global cultural education and dance representing the African diaspora. Photo courtesy of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance

A group of female Black ballet dancers practices in a dance studio

Expanding Access to Dance at Historic Denver Site

This is an opportunity for libraries to start curating a local collection of items, outside of book materials, based on the local needs of the community.

An illustration of library check out cards

While books still top the list of borrowed items, most libraries have expanded their offerings to include everything from musical instruments, baking pans, and science kits.

Ten Unexpected Things to Check Out at Public Libraries

Stephanie Ybarra is a program officer for Mellon’s Arts and Culture grantmaking area. Photo: Jeff Barry 

Stephanie Ybarra

In conversation with Mellon Program Officer Stephanie Ybarra: Responding to longstanding financial pressures, the next generation of nonprofit theaters will likely look very different.

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Program Officer, Arts and Culture

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The State of Nonprofit Theater in America Invites New Possibilities

The Republic has received $300,000 in grant funding from the Mellon Foundation. Mr. Wale Lawal, the founder of the Republic noted this in a public announcement.

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The Republic Receives $300,000 Grant from the Mellon Foundation

A grant of $800,000 from the Mellon Foundation will support the American Composers Orchestra in expanding its national EarShot activities.

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Mellon Foundation Awards $2.4 Million To American Composers Orchestra & More

People love their histories, their legacies, their knowledge, their questions—and they want to share that…It is an ongoing learning opportunity.

Artist Hugh Hayden’s Brier Patch, installed on the North Vista at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks

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A new report out of Mellon’s Humanities in Place program shares early learning and fresh perspectives from an evolving field of practice: place-based grantmaking.

What’s in a Place? More than Geography 

Supported by a Mellon Foundation grant, a Brown historian teamed up with a Lakotan scholar to illuminate overlooked histories of fossil extraction on Native American lands.

Media Brown

Studying fossil extraction on Native lands and exploring the depths of untold histories

A cross-section of a book is photographed up close in black and white

Public libraries are spaces to access books, information, and increasingly, critical community services. Emily Drabinski, president of ALA, shares experiences from libraries across the US.

Portrait of Emily Drabinsky

Associate Professor

Emily Drabinski

America’s Saving Spaces

Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities

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Theaster Gates, shown here, wants local Memphian hero Tom Lee to be remembered as “a human who saw other human lives as equally valuable, if not more valuable, than his own.”

A Black man identified as the artist Theaster Gates wearing a white shirt and dark pants sits on a stool covered with a tarp

An “Anti-Monument” Explores History by Asking for Dialogue

Theaster Gates sitting on a tarp covered seat

Artists as Catalysts

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Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 