Framingham nonprofit receives 3 years of funding from Cummings Foundation
The Framingham History Center is one of 150 local nonprofits that will share in $30 million through Cummings Foundation’s major annual grants program. The Framingham-based organization was selected from a total of 630 applicants during a competitive review process. It will receive $90,000 over three years.
The Framingham History Center (FHC) is committed to crafting community and belonging through engagement with Framingham’s past, present, and future. The 135-year-old institution provides a range of opportunities to explore the region’s history, from the Nipmuc People’s founding experiences in the area to the vibrant and ever-changing face of Framingham today. The FHC fulfills its mission through exhibitions, programming, and the preservation of three historic buildings and a 10,000-piece artifact collection. Established in 1888, the FHC provides a range of educational and curatorial programs for the MetroWest community, from hosting more than 700 third-grade students annually to opening a new exhibition in September 2023, “Collective Journeys: Framingham’s Global Migration Story, 1960-Present.”
The Cummings Grant provides essential funding for the FHC’s launch of the “Expanding Education Program.” The program is a three-part educational initiative that includes the Framingham Trailblazers, Mornings at the Museum, and Connecting to History for Adult ESL. This initiative seeks to remove the barriers of access and provide a multisensory, multilingual, and multigenerational experience for youth and adults to learn more about the history of Framingham.
- “Hands-On History: Framingham Trailblazers” will host elementary-grade students in a week-long, highly interactive learning experience that features artifact workshops, living history enrichment, map challenges, and biographies of notable residents of Framingham including Crispus Attucks and Meta Fuller. The goals of this program are for the students to learn about events and people of significance in Framingham history while also creating opportunities to consider their own role in the community.
- “Mornings at the Museum” program provides weekday and weekend sessions for caregivers looking to discover history with their toddler or early childhood youth. Each session will have a primary theme, such as “Farming in Framingham,” and include learning through intentional playtime; hands-on artifact discovery; and story and craft time.
- “Connecting to History for Adult ESL” creates opportunities for foreign-born residents in Framingham to engage with the history of their new environment as well as the history of their countries of origin. This fall program provides workshops for attendees of the Framingham Adult ESL Plus Program to learn the history of the area and provide a toolkit for exploring and sharing individual stories, including through oral histories.
“History is a key path to creating connection to ourselves, our past, and our community. At the FHC, we firmly believe that the abundant lessons and perspectives of history should be accessible to all, including our underserved youth and their families,” says Anna Tucker, executive director of the Framingham History Center. “The Cummings Grant provides critical funding to allow us to provide educational opportunities for youth to discover their personal and regional history in an interactive environment.”
The Cummings $30 Million Grant Program primarily supports Massachusetts nonprofits that are based in and serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties.
Through this place-based initiative, Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the areas where it owns commercial property. Its buildings are all managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate, Cummings Properties. This Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages 11 million square feet of debt-free space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.
“The way the local nonprofit sector perseveres, steps up, and pivots to meet the shifting needs of the community is most impressive,” said Cummings Foundation executive director Joyce Vyriotes. “We are incredibly grateful for these tireless efforts to support people in the community and to increase equity and access to opportunities.”
The majority of the grant decisions were made by about 90 volunteers. They worked across a variety of committees to review and discuss the proposals and then, together, determine which requests would be funded. Among these community volunteers were business and nonprofit leaders, mayors, college presidents, and experts in areas such as finance and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion).
“It would not be possible for the Foundation to hire the diversity and depth of expertise and insights that our volunteers bring to the process,” said Vyriotes. “We so appreciate the substantial time and thought they dedicated toward ensuring that our democratized version of philanthropy results in equitable outcomes that will really move the needle on important issues in local communities.”
The Foundation and volunteers first identified 150 organizations to receive three-year grants of up to $225,000 each. The winners included first-time recipients as well as nonprofits that had previously received Cummings grants. Twenty-five of this latter group of repeat recipients were then selected by a volunteer panel to have their grants elevated to 10-year awards ranging from $300,000 to $1 million each.
This year’s grant recipients represent a wide variety of causes, including housing and food insecurity, workforce development, immigrant services, social justice, education, and mental health services. The nonprofits are spread across 46 different cities and towns.
Cummings Foundation has now awarded $480 million to greater Boston nonprofits. The complete list of this year’s 150 grant winners, plus nearly 1,500 previous recipients, is available at www.CummingsFoundation.org.
About the Framingham History Center
The Framingham History Center (FHC) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization established in 1888. The FHC explores Framingham’s history through a wide range of exhibitions, educational resources, public programs, onsite collections, and more. Dedicated to connecting our community through Framingham’s history, the FHC is composed of three historic buildings around Framingham’s Centre Common and features a museum and 10,000-piece artifact collection. For more information, please visit framinghamhistory.org.
About Cummings Foundation
Woburn-based Cummings Foundation, Inc. was established in 1986 by Joyce and Bill Cummings of Winchester, MA and has grown to be one of the largest private foundations in New England. The Foundation directly operates its own charitable subsidiaries, including New Horizons retirement communities, in Marlborough and Woburn, and Cummings Health Sciences, LLC. Additional information is available at www.CummingsFoundation.org.
