The Mellon Foundation announces $ 15 million for the Human Sciences Councils

The Mellon Foundation announced on Tuesday $ 15 million in emergency funding for state councils in human sciences across the country, throwing what the defenders say they are a crucial rescue after the cancellation of federal support in danger of collapsing.

The new financing, which will support the human sciences councils in the 50 states and six courts, occurs a month after the national allocation for the humanities suddenly reduced the federal funding of the councils, as well as most of its existing subsidies. The endowment, which had a budget of $ 207 million during the last financial year, is the largest public funder in the country in the humanities, providing crucial support to museums, historic sites, cultural festivals and community projects.

The 15 million dollars of the Mellon Foundation will compensate for only part of the $ 65 million that state councils were to receive this year from the allocation of the human sciences, as affected by the Congress. But Elizabeth Alexander, the president of the Foundation, said that she would help preserve programs in human sciences, in particular in rural states without a solid basis of private philanthropy.

“The projects that come under the humanities section are an extraordinary range,” she said. “It would be terrible if countless people across the country lost access to everything that helps us understand what it is human, in history and in a contemporary community.”

The money of the Mellon Foundation, the largest funder in the country of artistic projects and human sciences as a whole, with an annual budget of subsidies of around 550 million dollars, is a unique infusion. Each council will obtain $ 200,000 in immediate operational support. Most of the others will come in the form of $ 50,000 in challenge subsidies, which must be equaled by other sources.

When the Human Sciences endowment canceled almost all of its existing subsidies earlier this monthAfter an examination of the Department of Elon Musk’s Government, he told the beneficiaries that he was redirecting his funding to “President’s priorities”. Last week, the agency announced that it was Engage $ 17 million to support the national garden of American heroesA park of patriotic sculptures that President Trump asked for the first time during his first mandate. (Additional $ 17 million will come from the national arts endowment.)

The agency also dismissed almost two thirds of its staff of around 180. And it announced a new subsidy program, “Celebrate America!” which will provide up to $ 6.25 million in subsidies for projects drawn to the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026.

For human sciences, the end of federal funding is an existential threat. Phoebe Stein, the president of Federation of State Human Sciences CouncilsWho will administer funding from the Mellon Foundation, said that 40% of the councils said they had less than six months of reserve funds.

“This is an absolute life buoy to restore advice,” said Stein. They “really consider it a moment to breathe because they find long -term solutions.”

Although the advice of human sciences can have a low profile, they support book festivals, literary events, local history projects and historical sites. These are also local economies engines, including tourism; According to the Federation, each $ 1 federal support translates into $ 2 in private investment.

The Mellon Foundation, whose assets totaled around $ 7.9 billion At the end of 2023, has already taken emergency measures. In 2020, while the coronavirus pandemic threatened the survival of many cultural organizations, it increased its annual subsidy to $ 500 million, compared to around $ 300 million. In June of the same year, he also announced a “Major strategic evolution” This would prioritize social justice.

Alexander, a Literary poet and scholar Who has run the Foundation since 2018, said the recent cuts through the federal government, not just the endowment of the humanities, had imposed devastating impacts on many of its subsidy recipients. The Foundation was considering another emergency aid, she said, but it could not replace all the lost federal support.

“Philanthropy itself is unable to connect all these holes,” said Alexander. “For the human sciences in particular, we thought it was somewhere, we had the responsibility to do what we could.”