Recent Community Project Grants
Major Grants ($2,001-$10,000)
Emphasizing dialogue for healing at the forefront of each program, the Courageous Conversations series challenged participants to think deeply about racial issues and biases based on appearance, race, gender, and political and social attitudes that have divided us, and motivated participants to make their communities places where true and full history is acknowledged, and where everyone can thrive.
Canterbury Shaker Village created a video to introduce viewers to the history of the Canterbury Shakers.
In 2022, The Claremont Opera House celebrated its 125th anniversary. As part of these celebrations, the Opera House used a selection of oral histories collected in 1981 to explore the history of Claremont and the Opera House, focusing on how the how the evolution of music and entertainment during the first half of the 20th century impacted the venue and town.
The Historical Society of Cheshire County, in partnership with the SALT Project and Stringpullers Puppet Company, produced a documentary exploring the life and work of Keene, NH, progressive-era activist Jennie Belle Powers.
The New Hampshire Historical Society partnered with Gary Samson of the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists and Inez McDermott of New England College to support a panel discussion series to accompany NH Now, a nine-venue photography exhibition documenting life in New Hampshire in the last few years.
The Plaistow Public Library, in partnership with over a dozen libraries, schools, and a museum, organized a community read centered on Jamie Ford’s best-selling novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Exploring the “bitter injustice” of the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the program generated community conversations about what it meant to be an American in 1941 and what it means today.
The SEE Science Center and the Manchester Historic Association collected oral histories that explore a half-century of economic change in the Manchester Millyard.
The Portsmouth Historical Society hosted a major literary exhibit, Imagine That! The Power of Picture Books, to highlight more than seventy books illustrated by artists from New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts over the past century. The project reasssed the region’s heritage of illustration and advanced public understanding of the vital role that picture books play in developing textual and visual literacy, connecting us across generations.
Acclaimed New Hampshire author Howard Mansfield and composer and pianist Ben Cosgrove explored how the 19th-century painters who came to the White Mountains changed the way we view the area and led to the tourist boom that has shaped the region's economy and sense of itself, right up to the present day.
MINI Grants (up to $2,000)
Theatre KAPOW, Expanding the Canon: A Play Reading Circle
Theatre KAPOW hosted a play reading circle focused on five plays by contemporary playwrights from across the Asian diaspora to ask: what does an American look like? In the discussions, participants analyzed, for example, a play’s structure, characters, stage directions, its critical response and relationship to other works.
Concord TV produced a documentary exploring the 95-year history of the Community Players of Concord, the community theater in Concord, NH. The film incorporated archival materials from the Community Player’s collection and featured interviews with current members as it explored the organization’s resilience—persisting through the Depression, the Second World War, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
John Hay Estate at the Fells, A Conversation with an Abenaki Poet
The John Hay Estate at the Fells hosted Abenaki poet Cheryl Savageau and UNH Professor of English Siobhan Senier for a conversation about Savageau’s work, her books of poetry and her recent memoir.
The annual Dawnland StoryFest is an annual storytelling event originally in created in 2015 by Papa Joe Gaudet to showcase traditional Native American storytellers. Audience members hear traditional stories and learn what they reveal about Indigenous cultures and values.
Olive G. Pettis Memorial Library, New England Legends with Jeff Belanger
The Olive G. Pettis Memorial Library hosted Jeff Belanger, a New England-based storyteller and speaker focusing on regional legends, lore, and paranormal happenings.
World Affairs Council, Academic WorldQuest
The World Affairs Council of NH hosted the NH Academic WorldQuest challenge, which allows students the opportunity to engage in global studies beyond the classroom. Student teams are given study materials in ten subject areas – using history, geography, and international studies to consider issues such as climate migration, the war in Afghanistan, the future of work, the global health agenda, technology, 21st century monetary policy, the history of the Vietnam War, and U.S.-China relations – to prepare for a one-day competition to crown the NH champion. The winning team gets the opportunity to travel to Washington, DC for a three-day national conference and competition.
Visit www.nhhumanities.org/grants to learn more about how to apply for a grant to fund a humanities project in your community.
