The Boston-based Barr Foundation has announced second-quarter grants totaling $18.5 million in support of organizations working in the areas of education, the environment, arts, and addressing nonprofit sector effectiveness as well as to fund special initiatives across New England.

In the area of Arts & Creativity, the foundation awarded six grants totaling $2.4 million, including $700,000 to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities in support of Expand Massachusetts Stories and $250,000 to the Asian American/Pacific Islander Arts and Culture Collaborative, led by the Asian Community Fund at the Boston Foundation. Through its Climate program, the foundation awarded 15 grants totaling $7.3 million, including $700,000 to the Northeast Clean Energy Council as part of the foundation’s Racial Wealth Equity Initiative, to support the expansion of clean energy and access to opportunities in the climate.

In the area of Education, the foundation awarded nine grants totaling $6.9 million, including two grants to national high school design partner Springpoint in support of its efforts on two significant projects. The first is an 18-month, $1.7 million grant to Springpoint’s National Center for Civic Innovation to expand access to Transformational Learning Experiences across more classrooms and to document learnings that can be used as a blueprint for more widespread system-level adoption, and a second grant of $3.3 million over two years that will support the implementation of the second cohort of the Transformative Leaders of Massachusetts fellowship. In addition, in the area of Sector Effectiveness, the foundation awarded a $1.5 million grant to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center to provide continued support for the Delivering on Equity Collective.

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