Project for Public Spaces has announced the availability of Community Placemaking Grants: Civic Spaces, a new initiative in partnership with Culture House and with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The initiative aims to support the creation of indoor pop-up spaces that promote civic and social life in urban and rural BIPOC and low-income communities in the Northeastern U.S.
Project for Public Spaces’ Community Placemaking Grants enable U.S.-based nonprofits as well as government agencies to address shortfalls in access to public spaces by working with local stakeholders to transform existing public spaces, or to help create new ones. This is done through direct funding through grants, as well as technical assistance and capacity building facilitated by Project for Public Spaces.
On its website, the organization states, “Many BIPOC, rural, and low-income communities across the United States lack access to dedicated civic spaces where community residents can organize, engage in public dialogue, and work to address local issues. This gap in our civic infrastructure hampers efforts to foster community leadership, build social cohesion, address systemic inequalities, and ensure government accountability.”
This current grant program will provide two nonprofits or public agencies collaborating with nonprofits in the Northeast $60,000 each in funding, along with technical assistance and capacity building over an 18-month period to support temporary physical improvements and operation of an indoor pop-up space. Recipients must be a U.S.-based 501c(3) nonprofit or local government agency, and the site must be located in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, or Vermont. The community served must be primarily (50%) BIPOC and/or low-income, and the organization should reflect the community it serves in its staff and leadership.
Applications for the grant are due Feb. 21, 2025, and grant recipients will be announced in mid-April 2025.
Learn more about this and other grant opportunities at Project for Public Spaces by visiting https://www.pps.org/community-placemaking-grants.