5 hours ago
5
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
The emergency funding came after the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled most existing grants, part of a pivot toward President Trump’s priorities.
April 29, 2025, 2:00 p.m. ET
The Mellon Foundation on Tuesday announced $15 million in emergency funding for state humanities councils across the country, throwing what advocates say is a crucial lifeline after the cancellation of federal support had left some in danger of collapse.
The new funding, which will support humanities councils in all 50 states and six jurisdictions, comes a month after the National Endowment for the Humanities abruptly cut off federal funding for the councils, as well as most of its existing grants. The endowment, which had a budget of $207 million last fiscal year, is the nation’s largest public funder of the humanities, providing crucial support to museums, historical sites, cultural festivals and community projects.
The $15 million from the Mellon Foundation will offset only a portion of the $65 million the state councils were set to receive this year from the humanities endowment, as appropriated by Congress. But Elizabeth Alexander, the foundation’s president, said it would help preserve humanities programs, particularly in rural states without a robust base of private philanthropy.
“The projects that fall under the rubric of the humanities are of an extraordinary range,” she said. “It would be terrible if countless people across the country lost access to all the things that help us understand what it is to be human, in history and in a contemporary community.”
The money from the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of arts and humanities projects overall, with an annual grant-making budget of about $550 million, is a one-time infusion. Every council will get $200,000 in immediate operational support. Most of the remainder will come in the form of $50,000 challenge grants, which must be matched by other sources.
When the humanities endowment canceled virtually all of its existing grants earlier this month, after a review by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, it told recipients that it was redirecting its funding toward “the President’s priorities.” Last week, the agency announced it was committing $17 million to support the National Garden of American Heroes, a patriotic sculpture park that President Trump first called for during his first term. (Another $17 million will come from the National Endowment of the Arts.)
