We are ringing in the New Year with some great news!  We have been awarded an $8,400 CT Cultural Fund Operating Support Grant (CTCFOSG).  We were one of 624 organizations in Connecticut that were awarded CT Cultural Fund support totaling $16M from CT Humanities (CTH). The CTCFOSGs are part of $30.7M of support allocated to arts, humanities, and cultural nonprofits through CTH over the next two years by the CT General Assembly and approved by Governor Ned Lamont.

We’ve also received a $5,460 CTH SHARP Capacity Grant.  Last spring the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) received $135 million from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021, as approved by Congress. The state humanities councils, including CT Humanities, each received a portion of the NEH award to support museums, archives, historic sites, and other humanities-focused nonprofits. The Mansfield Historical Society was one of 69 organizations in Connecticut that were awarded American Rescue Plan funding totaling $640,192 from CT Humanities. 

The CTH SHARP Capacity Grant will support our collaboration with UConn’s Digital Public History Internship Program.  This new internship program won’t officially launch until next fall, but we will host one of the pilot digital public history interns for the spring 2022 semester.  The intern will help us improve our website and explore new ways to present digital content.  The internship will be fully-funded by UConn.  This is a very exciting opportunity for us!  

The grant will enable us to upgrade our outdated computer equipment to better support the intern’s work and enhance our daily operations.  A portion of the grant will compensate staff for time devoted to the project. 

These two grants will help make up for some of the shortfall in our 2021 budget.  We should start 2022 in a better financial position.