Past Grant Recipient

Pam Petro, Photographer

About the Arts Council

Founded in 1980, the Northampton Arts Council has an all-volunteer board, appointed by the Mayor, and staff, consisting of one part-time executive director, one part-time arts administrator, one event coordinator/consultant, and one student intern. Each fall, the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), a state agency, allocates money to all of Massachusetts' 351 cities and towns through 329 Local Cultural Councils (LCCs), of which the Northampton Arts Council is one, in support of community arts activities. This is the largest decentralized program of its kind in the United States.

In addition to administering the LCC program, we were the first cultural council in the Commonwealth to raise money for a second round of funding every spring, with only a few other LCCs recently following our lead. The Arts EZ Spring Grant round is made possible by two major fundraising events produced by the Arts Council; first, Transperformance, an end-of-summer concert at Look Park held every August, and second, the Four Sundays in February Series. In addition to grant programs, the Northampton Arts Council produces events at the Academy of Music Theater like the Anime Fest and Sing-Along at the Movies, offers arts enrichment programs in the public schools, initiates public art projects and advocates for the arts in the city.