The Barr Foundation aims to enhance the quality of education across New England, particularly in secondary education. It focuses on opening doors to rigorous, personalized education to enable young people to thrive. The foundation emphasizes transforming high schools to become more relevant through various learning models that cater to the diverse needs of students, preparing them for higher education, the workforce, and community engagement.
The Barr Foundation's Arts & Creativity program revolves around the belief that arts and creativity are essential for vibrant, vital, and engaged communities in Massachusetts. It aims to elevate the arts and enable creative expression to engage and inspire through investment in bold ideas and leaders. The program carries out its mission with three strategic approaches: advancing the arts field's capacity to adapt, take risks, and engage changing audiences in innovative ways; fostering opportunities for arts to intersect with other disciplines and sectors; and activating public support for the arts. Grant considerations focus on organizations presenting artistically excellent work, demonstrating a proactive stance towards challenges with readiness to experiment, leveraging assets effectively, and showing leadership within their field and community. Priority areas include risk capital for arts organizations for artistic risk-taking and organizational change, creative placemaking initiatives, and supporting the integration of arts into community planning and development. The program also emphasizes the importance of joining arts with sectors like science, technology, and medicine while activating public support for arts through investment in research, policy analysis, and broadening public awareness and engagement.