Our Purpose

The Northampton Arts Council works to support and nurture the arts in the city of Northampton. The Council awards grants twice yearly to artists and arts groups from state and locally-raised funds and seeks to improve public awareness of the arts. Its goals include maintaining and preserving Northampton's rich and diverse cultural heritage, programming annual events of interest to the community, such as First Night Northampton, Northampton Summer Concert Series, Performance, and Silver Chord Bowl, and advocating for behalf of the arts community.

The Northampton Arts Council believes that art is for everyone. We strive to produce, support, and sustain arts and cultural initiatives that uphold all people—including but not limited to those who have been historically marginalized based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, neurodiversity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion. We affirm the need to redress historical inequities in the arts and cultural sector and commit to supporting equitable and inclusive practices through all aspects of our work.

Founded in 1980, the Northampton Arts Council is an all-volunteer council with a staff consisting of a full-time director, a full-time arts events producer, and one half-time assistant producer.

In addition to administering the LCC program, The Northampton Arts Council was the first cultural council in the Commonwealth to raise money for a second round of funding every spring, with only a few other LCCs following our lead. The ArtsEZ Grant round is made possible by three major fundraising events produced by the Northampton Arts Council; first, Performance, an end-of-summer live tribute music benefit at Look Park held every August, First Night Northampton, Northampton's New Year's Eve festival of the performing arts, and the Silver Chord Bowl, the legendary collegiate acapella invitational that takes place on the first Sunday in February.

In addition to grant programs, the Northampton Arts Council helps to bring arts enrichment programs to the public schools, initiates public art projects, and advocates for the arts in the city. We also produce or support many other events and projects in Northampton, including but not limited to Four Sundays, KidsBestFest, Ice Art Festival, Arts Night Out Northampton, and Chalk Art Festival. We also administer the Paradise City Cultural District, appoint and fund Northampton's Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate, and our own BJ Goodwin Memorial Scholarship Fund and the J. Scott Brandon Scholarship Fund.