Neighborhood Activation Grant

The Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture’s (MOAC) believes artists have a crucial role in creating a thriving, healthy community for all. Furthermore, MOAC is committed to ensuring that everyone has access to creative expression through lifelong arts programming across all Boston neighborhoods. The Neighborhood Activation Grant was created to support this vision by funding arts, cultural, and creative events happening in public spaces. 

Who can apply?  

This fund is open to individuals, nonprofit organizations, collectives, fiscally sponsored groups, and businesses working with and alongside community partners to implement creative activations of various scales in Boston, with a priority for projects that center communities who have been impacted by long-standing systemic inequities.

What is a creative activation? 

Specific to this grant, a creative activation is an arts, cultural, and/or creative experience in a publicly accessible space that imagines and explores new possible uses for that space. This includes experiences that: 

• Transform the Space: Result in permanent or temporary changes to the physical, social, or atmospheric components of the space.
• Highlight Community: Center the social fabric, traditions, norms, and conversations within the community, showcasing its existing strengths and history.
• Incorporate Multiple Creative Elements: Demonstrate a variety of creative elements, cultural traditions, artistic disciplines, and community engagement processes.
• Engage and Benefit Residents: Are designed, planned, and executed in partnership with residents, local organizations, business owners, and workers, aiming to benefit those within and surrounding the space.

This grant is open to both existing creative activations that are ongoing and new activations that are being launched for the first time. General examples of creative activations include (but are not limited to): performance art, community celebrations, a community-led stage, interactive theater productions, film screenings with conversation, cultural festivals, arts and cultural markets, community dialogues that center the arts, a digital arts festival, and more.

Grant Review Committee

MOAC is committed to implementing transparent, equitable and inclusive grantmaking practices, including the way we determine and distribute funding. The Grant Review Committee (GRC) is a diverse cohort across age, race, cultural backgrounds, professional and lived experiences, artists and community members, ability, gender identity, and more. It is comprised of MOAC staff members and community members, positioning community members as decision makers on systems and structures that ultimately have the power to shape their lives and the well-being of their communities.