July 24, 2024. RISCA awarded 149 grants totaling more than $898,653 throughout Rhode Island to arts and culture organizations, individual artists, folk apprenticeships and fellowships, arts educators and schools, and arts and health.
The grants received support from appropriations by the R.I. General Assembly and were federally funded through the National Endowment for the Arts. Listing of all grantees for fall FY2025
Nonprofits serving the state’s Black community have received nearly $110,000 in grants through the Black Philanthropy Bannister Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation.
The fund, established in 2007 to address the needs of the Black community in Rhode Island, supports nonprofits that offer youth development and mentoring, promote the history and achievements of Blacks in Rhode Island, preserve the culture of the Black community and strive to uplift low-income Black Rhode Islanders.
Nineteen organizations received grants:
The fund also offers scholarships for Black students who are pursuing or advancing a career in health care in college or a technical school. Last year, the fund awarded $54,500 to 25 recipients. The deadline to apply for 2023 scholarship assistance is April 10.
The Black Philanthropy Bannister Fund is just one of the grant programs the Foundation uses to support nonprofits that serve Rhode Island’s community of color. Recent initiatives include creating a capacity-building program to support nonprofits led by Asian, Black, Latino or Hispanic, Indigenous or multi-racial executive directors or other decision-makers within an organization; and launching a grant program to help nonprofits create anti-racist organizational cultures.
Twelve arts and/or culture-based non-profit organizations have been awarded a total of $500,000 in grant funding through the Providence American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Additionally, the City celebrated the continued prioritization of public art, while also recognizing its Sidewalk Tattoo project.
The 12 non-profits selected for grant funding through the ARPA Special Events Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) are Providence Children’s Film Festival, DESIGNxRI, Southside Community Land Trust, Educational Center of Arts and Sciences (ECAS), The Steel Yard, FirstWorks, Federal Hill Commerce Association, D’High Class Human Development Agency, Rhode Island Latino Arts (RILA), Oasis International, the Wilbury Theatre Group, and Quisqueya in Action, Inc.
Applicants were able to apply for up to $50,000 of demonstrated need. To be eligible for funding, these Providence-based, art and culture-based organizations had to (1) currently provide public special events programming and (2) have experienced negative impacts or disproportionate impacts of the pandemic as demonstrated by a year-to-year financial comparison with the fiscal year ending prior to March 2020.
Additionally, the Department of Art, Culture, + Tourism celebrated its the Sidewalk Tattoo public art program, made possible in part by the Art in City Life Ordinance. In early 2021, ACT and the Art in City Life Commission invited RI-based writers and artists to submit poetry or word-based art for permanent display on City sidewalks. Following the open call, the Art in City Life Commission awarded 30 artists $1,000 each, for a total of 30 poems or designs. The awarded poems were printed on reusable stamps, and the first two poems were installed into newly-repaired sidewalks in September of 2022. The first two tattoo installations can be found on Sharon Street, with many more to be applied in the future as funding and site conditions allow.
For more information on public art in Providence, please visit ACT’s website.
$2.5 Million Contribution by the Hasbro Foundation awarded to three nonprofit organizations: Year Up, Ghetto Film School and Angel Flight Northeast in Honor of Former Hasbro Chairman and CEO Brian D. Goldner
Hasbro announced the launch of the Brian Goldner Center for Transforming Futures to honor the life and legacy of Hasbro’s longtime Chairman and CEO Brian D. Goldner, who passed away one year ago in October.
The Center, funded by a $2.5 million contribution from the Hasbro Foundation, will provide multi-year social impact investments with a singular mission of transforming and uplifting lives.
Brian Goldner was a visionary for play, entertainment and storytelling, and he also championed Hasbro’s business as a force for good. During Goldner’s tenure leading Hasbro, he expanded the company beyond toys and games into entertainment, digital gaming and more – building essential touchpoints with Hasbro’s fans worldwide. He was particularly passionate about lifting others up through mentorship and opportunity and improving systems of care for vulnerable members of society.
Grants made by the Hasbro Foundation focus on its philanthropic mission to empower generations of storytellers, create sustainable impact and spark joy through play.
The Center’s investments will support three nonprofit organizations benefitting causes that were greatly significant to Goldner, including:
To learn more about the Hasbro Foundation and the Brian Goldner Center, visit: https://globalphilanthropy.hasbro.com/en-us/brian-goldner-center.
The leaders of 10 local organizations have been selected as fellows to participate in the latest Nonprofit Innovation Lab. This marks the third cohort of the joint effort of United Way of Rhode Island and Social Enterprise Greenhouse (SEG) that launched in 2020. The unique program challenges organizations to think outside the box to develop new solutions to pressing social issues, and offers an opportunity to secure seed funding to bring those ideas to life.
With the Nonprofit Innovation Lab, United Way and SEG help to accelerate organizations’ ability to hone and implement unique ideas with the potential to create positive social impact. The effort pairs each fellow with a custom team of coaches and provides the knowledge, resources, and networking opportunities that help turn transformative ideas into reality. The months-long program culminates with “Sparked!”, a “Shark Tank”-like presentation broadcast on Rhode Island PBS where fellows compete for $90,000 in seed funding and other in-kind services and supports. The fellows selected and their organizations are:
Through its Olneyville Community Fund, United Way of Rhode Island has awarded $182,708 in grants to programs whose work is strengthening the Providence neighborhood it calls home. The investments focus on creating opportunities for all by improving access to services for residents, enhancing educational offerings for children through adults, and increasing nonprofit capacity to meet community need. Eleven organizations received funding.
Grantees include Amenity Aid, Children’s Friend, Clínica Esperanza/Hope Clinic, Community Libraries of Providence, FirstWorks, Inspiring Minds, Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island, Olneyville Neighborhood Association, Project 401, Providence Promise, and Teatro ECAS.
The Champlin Foundation announced more than $9.6 million in capital funding to 87 nonprofit organizations across the state. Nonprofits receiving funding in this cycle serve Rhode Islanders of all ages across youth services, healthcare, arts and culture, and beyond. Among the recipients are 12 first-time grantees.
The Champlin Foundation specifically supports capital improvements across nine areas of focus: arts and culture, conservation and parks, education, healthcare, historic preservation and heritage, libraries, social services, youth services, and welfare of animals. Every area is represented in this round of funding. Total giving by the Foundation will be supplemented with a second round of grants in fall 2022.
The funding includes three $1 million awards, given to the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum, Crossroads Rhode Island, and the Boys and Girls Club of Providence. It is unusual for Champlin to award three grants of this size in one cycle, but it speaks to both the tremendous need in the nonprofit community and the leadership and commitment of the grantees.
The Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum is preparing to build a comprehensive, four-building campus on 18 acres of rural University of Rhode Island land in South Kingstown that honors the region’s Indigenous history with a new museum, robust archives, a maker’s space, as well as a building for educational programming.
In the face of an urgent statewide affordable housing crisis, Champlin awarded a $1 million grant to Crossroads Rhode Island, the leading provider of homeless services. The organization’s main headquarters, which is the epicenter of service and support for the more than 1,100 Rhode Islanders who face housing insecurity on any given day, is in need of significant exterior restoration and repair.
The third and final $1 million grant in this cycle is going to the Boys and Girls Club of Providence, which plans to renovate and expand its Wanskuck Clubhouse. The branch opened in 1927 and has been providing recreational activities and educational programming to the young people of the city’s North End ever since. The Boys and Girls Club of Providence is also a longstanding grantee, having received the first of what has been an annual grant from The Champlin Foundation in 1958.
In addition to the three mentioned, grants supporting other transformational projects were awarded to Teatro ECAS, which is building out a larger theater in the Valley Arts District; Save the Bay, which is moving its Newport aquarium to a greatly expanded new Downtown space; Revive the Roots in Smithfield, which is acquiring land and the historic Mowry house; and a grant to CCRI that will completely update the Dental Hygiene program’s equipment at the Lincoln campus.
The full list of grantees and their awards is available on the Champlin website.
As part of the National Endowment for the Arts’ $91 million grantmaking initiative (Arts Projects, Our Town, and State and Regional Partnerships), Rhode Island State Council of the Arts and five local nonprofits received a total of almost $990,000.
Nonprofit recipients were Community MusicWorks, Brown University, First Works, Newport Music Festival, and AS220.
The Rhode Island Foundation honored three nonprofit organizations with its annual Best Practice Awards. The work that is being honored includes an initiative to support Latino-owned small businesses and a community gardening program that grew one ton of fresh produce for a local food pantry.
Sponsored by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, the award program recognizes outstanding practices by Rhode Island nonprofit organizations in the area of collaboration, with an emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The three recipients will each receive $5,000 grants in recognition of their achievements.
The Norman Bird Sanctuary in Middletown was honored for its “Good Gardens Program,” which focuses on growing produce for the food pantry at Newport’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. In 2021, over a ton of fresh fruit and vegetables was donated. The initiative is a collaboration with the MLK Center and the URI Master Gardeners. It includes a summer program that introduces kids to gardening.
The Woonsocket Afterschool Coalition was honored for doubling the number of school children receiving services. The Riverzedge Arts Project is one of six nonprofit organizations that comprise the coalition.
The Coalition aims to increase the number of students receiving services by an additional 4,000 in the next three years. The other partners are the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northern R.I., the Community Care Alliance, Connecting for Children and Families, NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley and the Woonsocket YMCA.
The Rhode Island Israel Collaborative in Providence was honored for its R.I. Latino Biz Web Design Project, which matched skilled local students with Latino-owned businesses in Rhode Island to create websites in order to keep up with the move to e-commerce during COVID-19.
In partnership with the R.I. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, 31 Latino-owned businesses were paired with students from Providence College and other local colleges to create websites using Israeli WIX, a cloud-based, web development platform located in Israel. The Israel General Consulate to the New England and other donors helped fund the project.