Mass cultural council pass program

The power of culture Culture lifts the human spirit and makes Massachusetts a better place to live, work, and prosper. Culture embraces everyone. Culture enriches community. Culture drives growth and opportunity. Culture empowers a new creative generation. What culture does. When we invest in our cultural life, we invest in our shared future. Billion That's the economic impact of culture in our state. Thousand That's how many full-time-equivalent jobs are supported by our cultural nonprofits.

What we do. Our Programs ». Youth We expand education and put creativity at the center of youth development. Education » Creative Youth Development ». Communities We help cities and towns create rich cultural experiences and improve quality of life.

Organizations We help cultural organizations grow and engage more people in our communities. Developing an asset key. A map of the proposed district must be submitted for review. This should be prior to completing the online application.

This is prior to sending in the additional documents. Use the online application inventory of assets. Submit one map of the proposed district as well as digital file of the map. The map should show the proposed boundaries color maps are best. Include a key to the assets and define a scale of distance. The map should mark the proposed boundaries of the district. Show the location of cultural assets.

Include the following:. Mark cultural assets located outside the proposed district on the map. Note cultural district partners located outside of the proposed district. James Avenue, 3rd floor Boston, MA The Cultural Districts Initiative Manager will review the submitted map and additional materials.

They will contact you to discuss the map and potential boundary issues. Please note that in most cultural district designation applications the map boundaries are revised based on the review process. The online portion of the application is designed as a work plan. Use the inventory section to assess cultural assets.

Submitting Additional Application Documents All items are required for an application to be reviewed. Allow plenty of time to collect all the documents. Once the application is complete, staff will be in contact to arrange a site visit. The site visit involves a tour of the proposed cultural district. The tour involves Mass Cultural Council staff and a site advisor on a mutually-agreed date.

Confirmation of the site visit agenda and attendees is required at least two weeks in advance of the site visit. The site advisor will write a site visit report. The report is based on the review criteria and their observations during the site visit. Their report is reviewed by Mass Cultural Council. Mass Cultural Council staff and the site advisor take approvals to the governing Council. Council members make all final decisions concerning state designation. Following the Council vote, notice of the outcome of the application the city or town is by letter.

If the application is successful, staff will contact you to arrange a designation. They will discuss media messages with you. If the application is not successful staff will discuss how to reapply.

An annual progress report is required each year of the five-year designated period. The impact of a cultural district is tangible and measurable.

Designated cultural districts must gather baseline data. This is each year of the designation. Visitors — Track percentage growth or loss of visitors to the district. However, this does not mean that a large crowd of people needs to participate in order to satisfy the public benefit requirement. Whenever possible, activities funded by LCCs should be available to the general public by exhibit, performance, demonstration, reading, or other means.

Programs do not need to be in-person to provide public benefit. Virtual and remote programming are also effective ways to make programming available to the public while supporting efforts to maintain and promote public health. In looking at the requirement of applicants to offer public benefit to a community, LCCs should look towards responses from their community input process to better inform their council priorities. These priorities can help shape the kinds of applications councils receive and possibly accept.

Non-Discrimination In accordance with state law, LCCs may not discriminate against applicants on the basis of race, gender, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, sexual orientation or age, nor may they fund projects that discriminate on the basis of these attributes.

The Americans with Disabilities Act ADA requires that persons with disabilities have access to public programs or services on an equal basis with the rest of the general public. Furthermore, federal law mandates that any programs or service that receives federal or state funding must be accessible to persons with disabilities and there must be reasonable accommodation made to provide an accessible environment. Therefore, all events and programs funded by the LCCs must consider access for persons with disabilities, including the facility or event location as well as the content of the program.

If an applicant puts forward a proposal for a project with strong potential for public benefit, but the Local Cultural Council has concerns about access for persons with disabilities, the council may choose to award a conditional approval see page 12 of the LCC Program guidelines.

This would allow the applicant the opportunity address the concerns and improve access as a condition of receiving the grant. For further information on ensuring accessible programming, please refer to the Accessibility page for LCCs. Local Criteria LCCs are authorized to develop additional criteria and may give different weight to their criteria in order to reflect local concerns and community cultural needs.

Council priorities were required to be posted on this web site by September 1. LCCs were encouraged to remove requirements, restrictions, and barriers that may have been carried over from previous years, that no longer make sense given the current reality of the COVID pandemic — requirements such as venue letters or online only applications for communities that have little to no internet access.

Local Cultural Councils were directed to not make changes that would make any applications submitted between October 1 and October 28 ineligible. LCCs could only make changes that broaden local criteria to be more inclusive and flexible. LCCs who chose to take advantage of this opportunity were directed to publicize the change to their community and include the date the local priorities were updated on their public webpage.

Scholarships Although individual students are not eligible to apply for scholarships, an organization may apply to an LCC to sponsor a scholarship provided the LCC feels the scholarship program provides sufficient public benefit and meets all other state and local criteria.

Dissatisfaction with the denial of an application or with the amount of an award does not constitute grounds for reconsideration. Reconsideration requests must be made in writing and must be sent to the LCC within 15 days of the date the disapproval notification was sent.

The applicant should also send a copy of the request to Mass Cultural Council. The request should include:.