Mellon partners with nonprofit organizations whose work aligns with our current strategies.

A Picture of Working-Class Life, Painted with Everyday Objects

Learning about the stories of ordinary people allows us... to see the ways that our communities have evolved into what they are today. 

A letter sent to the Tenement Museum more than 30 years ago implored the museum to remember the lives of Black New Yorkers. “Union of Hope: 1869,” a new exhibit with related educational programming, answers this call and introduces visitors to Joseph and Rachel Moore through a tour of their recreated dwelling. 

An ornamentally decorated wood bed holds a quilt and pillows. A lantern sits on a side table next to the bed and illuminates a wooden cross that hangs on the wall above it.. 

Meet the Moore Family: American History, Hope, and Dreams

Snapshots of a Prolific Career

The home and studio of Robert T. Coles was designed and built in 1961 to be oriented away from Humboldt Parkway—the parkway-turned-highway along which it sits. 

A front view of a yellow and gray two storied modern rectangular house 

Mid-Century Marvel

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

A ‘Monument to Listening’ Explores History by Asking for Dialogue

The emergency funding came after the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled most existing grants, part of a pivot toward President Trump’s priorities.

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Mellon Foundation Announces $15 Million for Humanities Councils

The hand and trumpet of an American jazz trumpeter during rehearsals for ‘Dizzy Gillespie Dream Band Jazz America,’ New York City, 1981. Photo: Jill Freedman for Getty Images, Premium Archive

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Meet the organizations receiving $4 million of critical grants in order to continue their work of preserving and progressing of jazz culture

Eight Organizations Striking Major Chords in Contemporary Jazz Culture

American Jazz, American Culture

Illustration: Branche Coverdale for Mellon Foundation

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Elizabeth Alexander led a discussion with guests that rejoiced in the American innovation of jazz—and the cultural creativity it has never ceased to generate throughout the world. 

American Jazz,  American Culture

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Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation announced a second cohort of the ‘Writing Freedom Fellowship’ – a program created to elevate the voices of writers impacted by the carceral system.

Haymarket Books and Mellon Foundation Announce Second Cohort of ‘Writing Freedom’ Fellows 

Elizabeth Alexander has focused on diversity as a scholar, a writer, a teacher, and now as president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest funder of the arts and humanities in the U.S.

Media Time

TIME100 Philanthropy: Elizabeth Alexander

The Mellon Foundation’s core grantmaking areas include a Public Knowledge program that strives to make knowledge accessible to everyone to build a more informed and engaged society.

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5 Funders Working to Expand Public Access to Knowledge

Fort Conley and Wyandot Women Warriors has received a major grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of Kansas City Monuments Coalition through the UMKC Center for Digital and Public Humanities.

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Wyandot Nation of Kansas & Monumenta Announce Major Grant From Mellon Foundation

Housed in one of the historic Jane Addams Homes, the new museum aims to challenge perceptions about the sector. The museum has a small permanent collection and archive funded by the Mellon Foundation.

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Changing the narrative: National Public Housing Museum opens in Chicago

Alexander is the president of the Mellon Foundation, which recently launched a $35 million initiative and fellowship supporting the cultural preservation of jazz.

Elizabeth Alexander: Jazz Is Profoundly American

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

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Photo: Jared Soares for Mellon Foundation
 

Historic two-story house with 2 chimneys, surrounded by leafless trees and a wooden fence. An American flag waves in the foreground.

Mellon announced a $15 million emergency funding commitment to address the impact of the recent federal funding cuts that have devastated state humanities councils.

America’s Humanities Councils Get a Lifeline

Historic two-story house with two chimneys, surrounded by leafless trees and a wooden fence. An American flag waves in the foreground.

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.

Borderlands Cultures

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

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" 

America’s Humanities Councils Get a Lifeline

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

Our community in focus

Meet the Moore Family: American History, Hope, and Dreams