The Philadelphia-based William Penn Foundation has announced the first round of grants through its refined Creative Communities program. 

Sixteen grants totaling more than $7 million were awarded in support of programs and initiatives to enable people across the greater Philadelphia region to benefit from inclusive, diverse, and high-quality arts and culture experiences. Grants were made through five new funding strategies centering diversity and equity through the foundation’s arts and culture and public spaces funding areas: arts and culture hubs, arts education and exposure, arts presentation and art making, arts and culture, and public spaces. 

“As you will see in the list of recently awarded funding, there are projects in Camden, New Jersey, others that reach people from across the region, and projects that are mobile and quite literally drive around the city,” wrote William Penn Foundation senior program officer and interim program director Hillary Murray in a blog post. “It is a broad array of projects, programs, and organizations that we know will reflect, amplify, excite, educate, and engage the many beneficiaries the work will reach.” 

For a complete list of Creative Communities grants, see the William Penn Foundation website.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/jenoche)