Every year HumanitiesDC awards approximately one million dollars to DC residents, community groups and nonprofit organizations through a series of grant opportunities to support public humanities projects that bring people together to explore the history, culture, relationships and topics that shape our city’s communities.
”HumanitiesDC has given me the support that I need to celebrate my community, to say Thank You and give back. I have really enjoyed this entire experience and so have my neighbors.”
– Paul Grant, Grantee
Our Funding Goals
We design and conduct our grantmaking with these primary goals in mind:
Help all DC residents, and those connected to our city, participate in and learn about our collective heritage and culture, especially the experiences, areas and voices that have been excluded from public conversation.
Provide opportunities for community members to use the humanities as a tool to explore their curiosities and document their own stories.
Strengthen our overall humanities community by supporting individual scholars, community experts, and humanities-based organizations.
Center the community in our grantmaking by creating a transparent and accessible process open to all local residents.
Who we are funding
In 2026, HumanitiesDC will distribute $896,000 in awards recommended by selective peer review panels of 83 volunteer grant reviewers across six program categories to support 53 grantees.
If you have a question about our grant making process please reach out to our Grants Team at grants@humanitiesdc.org.
| Organization or Individual Name | Project Title | Amount Awarded | Project type | Grantee Location |
| Oral History Interviewing – DC Oral History Collaborative Grants | ||||
| Awen Southern | Why Did They Stay? From Temporary to Permanent Homemaking in Northwest DC | $13,000 | Oral History | Ward 2 |
| DC Villages Council | Aging in Place, Growing in Community: How D.C. Seniors Built Networks of Care | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 6 |
| Deonne Gantt-Bey | Serving Legacy: African American Tennis, Community, and Cultural Memory Oral History Interviewing | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 1 |
| Dumbarton Arts & Education | Community, Culture, Continuity: Documenting a DC Arts Legacy | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 2 |
| Edwin Zhao & Aminyah Muhammad M’Backe | We All We Got: The Women of H.A.B.I.B. | $13,000 | Oral History | Ward 5 |
| Hailey Hartigan | Keeping the Beat: Oral Histories of the Malcolm X Park Drum Circle | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 2 |
| Hola Cultura | A Cause for Unity | $13,000 | Oral History | Ward 1 |
| Jess Rucker | The Linda Leaks and DC Limited Equity Housing Cooperative Movement Oral History Project | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 1 |
| KK Ottesen | Whose Streets? Our Streets: January 6, The Local Story | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 6 |
| Lew Is Ckool | FortStanton.Online: Oral Histories of Place, Change, and Community Memory | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 8 |
| Melinda Donnelly | Cultivating Community: Oral Histories from Peabody Community Garden | $7,810 | Oral History | Ward 4 |
| Rhonda Henderson | “Say No to My Face” : Youth and Community Advocacy to Build Banneker High School | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 6 |
| Stephen Hicks | Five, Six, Seven, Eight — The Story of Tyrone Murray | $6,000 | Oral History | Ward 5 |
| Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School | Voices East of the River: 25 Years of Thurgood Marshall Academy | $8,000 | Oral History | Ward 8 |
| Visions – Projects + Events Grants | ||||
| 1882 Project Foundation | Caretaking + Place: Women Organizers in DC Chinatown | $25,000 | Exhibit | Ward 2 |
| Corazon Latino | Stories of Trees DC | $25,000 | Research/Publication | Ward 2 |
| DC Jazz Festival | 2026 DC: A Jazz City Video Series | $25,000 | Festival | Ward 6 |
DC SCORES | DC SCORES Citywide Poetry Slams | $25,000 | Event | Ward 2 |
DC Zinefest | DC Zinefest | $10,156 | Festival | Ward 4 |
| DC/DOX (Sponsored by Women in Film and Video) | DC/DOX Film Festival 2026 | $25,00000 | Festival | Ward 6 |
| Gallaudet University | History of ASL Poetry (working title) | $25,000 | Exhibit | Ward 5 |
GOODProjects | “What’s the Point? Preserving Civic Memory in Southwest DC” | $25,000 | Research / Exhibit | Ward 6 |
| Home Rule Music and Film Preservation Foundation | Home Rule Music Festival | $25,000 | Festival | Ward 4 |
| Many Languages One Voice | Diaspora and Belonging in the Nation’s Capital | $25,000 | Multimedia / Exhibit | Ward 1 |
| My Voice Media Group | Neighborhood Favorites | $25,000 | Multimedia, including short videos or podcasts | Ward 6 |
| Operation Understanding DC | DC Cemetery Preservation Project | $23,500 | Research / Curriculum | Ward 6 |
| SoulLife Foundation | From the White House to the Ward: The Cultural Birth of Black Music Month in Washington, DC | $25,000 | Research/Publication; Exhibit | Ward 5 |
| Valley Place Arts Collaborative, Inc. | Grounded in Play: Reclaiming Nature as Home – an exhibition to preserve “THE FIELD” | $25,000 | Multimedia; Research/Publication | Ward 8 |
| Community Culture & Heritage Grants | ||||
| Charlia Acree | Capital M: Exploring Motherhood Across Wards and Generations in DC | $10,000 | Event | Ward 4 |
| DC Theater Arts | A Living Archive of DC Theater | $10,000 | Multimedia; Research/Publication | Ward 3 |
| Eileen Dougherty | Voices of Resilience | $10,000 | Documentary Film | Ward 6 |
| Extreme Lengths Productions | Kinematic/Kinesthetic | $10,000 | Research/Publication | Ward 5 |
| Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop | On the Same Page: Poetry in the Community and Classroom | $10,000 | Gathering; Curriculum | Ward 1 |
| Gabriel Mata | 3rd Annual Latinx Movement Festival | $10,000 | Festival | Ward 4 |
| Gabrielle Newell | Swann Society: Uplifting Washington DC’s Legacy of Courageous Celebration | $10,000 | Event | Ward 1 |
| Kelly Baggatts | Ground Beneath the City: DC’s Agricultural and Community Growing History | $10,000 | Documentary Film; multimedia | Ward 5 |
| Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Alumni Federation | DC Youth Memory Map: Justice, Not Just Is—Stories We Inherit | $10,000 | Curriculum; Exhibit | Ward 5 |
| Phil Hutinet | 2027 Capital Art Book Fair | $10,000 | Festival | Ward 6 |
| Tasha Klusmann | 50 Years of Community Activism at the Anacostia Skating Pavilion | $10,000 | Research/Publication | Ward 7 |
| Tommy Taylor Jr | The Special Ways (Feature Documentary) | $10,000 | Documentary Film | Ward 8 |
| Zoe Poindexter | Defining Love: Voices of Black D.C. | $10,000 | Multimedia, including short videos or podcasts | Ward 5 |
