The Maine Humanities Council focuses on distributing funding to nonprofit organizations for programs and projects that highlight the humanities, with a special emphasis on ensuring these opportunities reach communities traditionally under-resourced in these areas. Their mission underlines the importance of broad public outreach and inclusive practices in humanities programming.
The Maine Humanities Council Grant program, focusing on Major Grants, aims to distribute funding to nonprofit organizations in Maine for significant humanities programs and projects. These can include a wide range of activities such as exhibits, films, conferences, and various initiatives that offer substantial public outreach. The program values projects that present rich, well-developed humanities content, encourage strong participation from both a scholar or topic expert and the community, and feature robust support from community partners. Specifically, the grant supports projects that engage Maine audiences with the humanities, involve deep expertise and community involvement at every project stage, use a creative approach to public engagement, and have clear, well-defined goals with mechanisms to gather participant feedback. Successful proposals are expected to detail the project format, provide a comprehensive timeline, present a well-considered budget that outlines the use of MHC funding and demonstrates financial planning through matching contributions, and show how all budget figures were derived.