Can MacKenzie Scott Save the Humanities?

No, because they are not dying. Yes, they could use $250 million.

We live with the consequences of underfunding the humanities.

When Americans don’t know how to respect different view points or see their stories as part of a shared heritage, we begin to see other voters as mortal enemies. When history, ethics, and critical thinking disappear from classrooms, libraries, and town halls, the past gets manipulated and facts become optional.

How can we turn the tide? How do we build the momentum for the many people who use the humanities to reimagine their hometowns and their country? Where could we find more funding and would it make a difference?

Enter MacKenzie Scott. This month, the philanthropist announced plans to make unrestricted $1 million donations to 250 community-focused nonprofits in areas including healthcare, education, housing, and civic engagement.

The goal: to create a “new pathway to support for organizations making positive change in their communities.”

There are important critiques of this style of philanthropy, particularly philanthropy that draws on the vampire-like economic model that is Amazon. I encourage you to consider these when donating or shopping.

For this week’s The Relentless Humanities, let’s use the announcement of this new “open call” to imagine what might happen if someone—be that Scott or the American public—invested another $250 million in community-focused humanities organizations making positive change. The infrastructure already exists to do this, and a journey through its origins and its recent past is helpful for anyone interested in supporting the humanities, billionaire or not.

Let’s start with a phrase you may have heard before from your friendly neighborhood humanities advocate:

Democracy demands wisdom.

Where (Much of) the Money Comes From Today

In 1965, President Johnson signed legislation establishing the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Almost sixty years later, that legislation remains aspirational…

An advanced civilization must not limit its efforts to science and technology alone, but must give full value and support to the other great branches of scholarly and cultural activity in order to achieve a better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better view of the future.

Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.

It is vital to democracy to honor and preserve its multicultural artistic heritage as well as support new ideas, and therefore it is essential to provide financial assistance to its artists and the organizations that support their work.

Reading these hopeful words today can feel bittersweet. So much of America’s promise still awaits fulfillment, and our democracy has veered into a volatile terrain where words like “all backgrounds” and “multicultural” are regularly assailed as offensive by political actors who benefit from divisiveness.

Today’s versions of the 1980’s “culture wars” feel more like an actual war. Suppressing the study of history is in vogue for those seeking to oppress people’s right to vote and, indeed, to exist. This is not just happening in Florida. It’s happening in Massachusetts, too.

It’s notable that NEH and NEA came into being as part of the Great Society legislation. While we can debate the legacy of LBJ’s policies and the expansion of the federal government, the humanities and the arts were rightly grouped with our nation’s commitments to clean air and water, voting rights, fighting poverty, and public education.

Because if the last few years taught us anything, it is that science and technology face deadly headwinds in a population that can’t agree on, or even discuss “a better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better view of the future.”

Without the humanities, we put those commitments to science, democracy, and education in peril.

Graph: American Association of Universities

NEH and NEA may have emerged alongside agencies dedicated to science and public health, but they exist in a different universe when it comes to funding. To be clear, despite efforts under the previous administration to eliminate NEH and NEA, Congress provides steady funding increases each year. NEH received $207 million for FY2023. We are grateful for this level of support. But if we adjust for inflation, this year’s NEH budget falls below the funding level in 1973, and well short if the projected 2023 budget for Newton (Mass.) Public Schools ($262M) and the 2023 Red Sox payroll ($220M). It equals .02% of the National Science Foundation budget.

Now imagine an America where we doubled the funding for the humanities.

Imagine more Americans learning about our country at schools and universities, but also at hospitals and human services agencies. More support for tribal nations and public television stations. More writing programs for veterans, military personnel and their families. More free college courses for people facing economic hardship and for incarcerated people. More funding for community centers, documentary filmmakers and poets. More free family literacy programs in day care centers. More digital platforms that give free access to lesson plans and primary documents. More intergenerational conversations in rural communities and urban neighborhoods.

These are just a few of the things today’s NEH supports with the resources available. Our moment calls for more.

Imagine doubling the salaries of the librarians who meet the needs of an aging population and welcome recent immigrants. Speaking of jobs, imagine embedding those emerging humanities PhDs with communities to document the cultures at risk from rising seas, or to study the changes endured by small towns and big cities in pandemic-era America. Imagine every high school history teacher using new digital tools to teach the history of the Holocaust to a generation at risk of forgetting.

To quote an essay penned by the six New England state humanities council directors, just days after the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol:

We must lay the groundwork for a reawakening of civic engagement by encouraging the participation of all residents in this reckoning with our histories. The rebuilding of America can begin in the public spaces dedicated to learning: libraries, community centers, local museums and historic sites. The national conversation about our past and future should be robust, multilingual and ongoing. [Congress] can stimulate this national conversation by significantly increasing funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Another $250 million would be a great place to start.

In fact, the humanities offer a national plug-and-play funding network for any megadonor seeking to reinvigorate our democracy.

To demonstrate, let’s go back to 1971, then make stops in 2015, 2020 and 2022. The humanities: your admission-free time machine.

The Genius and Potential of Humanities Councils

From Mary Rizzo’s succinct (and healthily critical) history of state humanities councils:

After just a few years of NEH grantmaking, Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, who had helped write the legislation creating the agency (as well as the college loan program that bears his name), was dissatisfied with its impact. Rather than reaching local communities at the grassroots level, funding was supporting universities and scholarly research. If the humanities were really essential to democracy, then there needed to be a method of reaching non-academics with the insights of humanities scholars. The state humanities councils, which could work with local communities, were the solution.

Starting in 1971, NEH’s Federal-State Partnership seeded humanities councils across the nation to serve as bridges between academia and the public. The councils could shape their methods for building that bridge. Some leaned heavily on grant-making, while others developed their own programs. Importantly, they were set up as private non-profits, in partnership with but distinct from the federal agency.

I’ll emphasize: their founding purpose was to work with local communities at the grassroots level.

Today, there is a council in every state as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. Mass Humanities is one of these councils. Each year, roughly 30% of the NEH budget is distributed to these 56 state affiliates through base grants largely calculated by population size. In FY2023, the councils received $67 million.

According to the Federation of State Humanities Councils, this network of nonprofits partners with more than 5,175 organizations nationwide and hosts more than 8,000 live events annually. Collectively, we awarded more than 3,700 grants using federal, state, and private funds in 2022.

Over the last fifty years, what began as a bridge evolved into a diverse, responsive public-private partnership. Each council can tailor its mission and impact to respond to the specific landscape of its state.

Put simply, humanities councils are amazing.

Sure, but doesn’t that all depend on public funding?

With their operating expenses largely supported by NEH funding, humanities councils can leverage private funds to make great impacts, respond more creatively to community needs, and attract additional resources.

I have experience with two councils in two very different states, Louisiana and Massachusetts. In both cases, the organizations demonstrate how substantial additional funding can catalyze immediate positive change.

In 2015, a $200,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation allowed the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities to launch a statewide conversation about coastal land loss. The work began with documentary films, magazine articles and a traveling Smithsonian exhibition, then expanded to conversations with the families of young children living along the Mississippi River and a partnership with the state’s coastal protection agency. That initial investment turned into more than $1 million in impact through an ongoing initiative for people in the Pelican State to learn, discuss and respond to the existential crisis of climate change.

2022 Mass Humanities Grantees: Clockwise from top left, Cape Cod Cape Verdean Museum and Cultural Center, Southeast Asian Coalition of Central Massachusetts, The Flavor Continues and the Ohketeau Cultural Center.

At Mass Humanities, our outreach and increased grant-making during the first two years of the pandemic built out our network of applicants and generated more interest from organizations we may have overlooked in the past. We saw a dramatic upswing in applications via Expand Mass. Stories, a new grant making initiative aimed at reimagining the narratives and communities of the Commonwealth. In 2022, Mass Humanities received a two-year, $700,000 grant from the Barr Foundation. The funding gave us the flexibility to drive more funding to projects and organizations led by people of color, with 62% of the stories grantees now identifying as BIPOC. We match this funding through our partnership with Mass Cultural Council, the state arts agency. This means the histories we generate in the Bay State will be shaped by people whose wisdom and experiences were excluded for too long by institutions and funders.

Wait, what about MacKenzie Scott?

OK, so what would happen if all 56 of these very different organizations received a new influx of funding?

Hey, that happened.

Twice. In the last three years. During a pandemic.

In March 2020, as COVID-19 shuttered public life, NEH received $75 million in supplemental grant funding through the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. The agency awarded $30 million to the humanities councils with the request that we distribute the money directly to humanities organizations, including museums, libraries, archives, historic sites.

Across the nation, the councils got to work. NEH provided the funds to us in April 2020. Today, a Google search of “(Insert State Humanities Council Name)” and “CARES Act,” turns up numerous announcements of grants awarded in May and June 2020. In Massachusetts, we distributed those funds by June 2020, delivering $572,500 in grants to 123 organizations. In 2021, NEH received $135 million through the American Rescue Plan, with $56 million going to the councils. Mass Humanities awarded $987,000 to 90 organizations, again within 90 days.

It’s one thing to shoot a flare and ask community-focused organizations to show up with ideas and budgets. It’s another to build relationships and understanding of those communities. By design, the councils serve as more than a pass through—collectively, we are a responsive network that adds value, relationships and credibility to the funding process.

Three years after the CARES Act, we know how to deliver money to local organizations. Yes, those grants were relatively small, aimed at replacing lost revenue and preserving staff. But no, it would not be that difficult to add a few zeros to each of those grants. Those grantees are now in our databases and familiar with our people and processes. At Mass Humanities, the pandemic experience taught us to streamline applications and knock down the barriers that prevent small organizations led by people from historically excluded communities from securing funds. We want to serve more of them. And, with more funding, we could.

I’m confident my colleagues around the nation would say the same thing.

Each of Us Our Own Billionaire

There are so many great organizations and causes with urgent needs and threadbare budgets that deserve Mackenzie Scott’s support. It’s also worth considering the fairness of a system that forces non-profits to scurry or contort to fit an opportunity.

As someone who leads a foundation, I’m committed to the urgent work needed to dismantle inequitable structures in that system. Mass Humanities has more work do to do on that front. And I don’t believe the answers lie in depending on one megadonor.

Even if you don’t have a few billion at your disposal, you are still an important voice in our democracy. You can write your reps in Congress and tell them that the humanities are essential to our future.

I’ll close with this. There is a conflict unfolding today between people intent on facing the imperfections and injustices of our country, past and present, on sharing those truths with our children and ourselves, and those seeking to bury the truth and intimidate its messengers. That conflict is playing out in libraries and museums and schools and cultural spaces in every state in the union.

Support for the humanities—whether through government funding or by cutting a few six-figure checks—equips the institutions, individuals, and communities on the frontlines of that conflict.

I hope we can all find ways to contribute. Or find a spare $250 million somewhere in the couch cushions.