PHOTO BY BRIAN COOK SR. | GOLDEN SKY MEDIA

The Heinz Endowments can point you to the city’s treasures.

The nonprofit organization, which for decades has supported local nonprofits, currently gives more than $90 million in grants. In 2021, the Heinz Endowments identified 16 local, Black-led organizations as Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures, serving as a regional partner for the Ford Foundation, which launched the Cultural Treasures Initiative in September 2020 to respond to the pandemic and global racial-justice protests.

“The Ford Foundation was making it their own effort nationally to create large, transformative foundation gifts for historically significant but underfunded organizations of color nationally,” explains Mac Howison, program officer for creativity and learning at the Heinz Endowments. For each of the nine regions in the initiative, the Ford Foundation promised $5 million in unrestricted grants as long as a local foundation (or coalition) matched the gift.

“Because of the demographics and the cultural history of this region, the Heinz Endowments — in consultation with community partners — decided we would focus on the Black cultural sector,” Howison says. The Heinz Endowments selected an initial 16 organizations, which Howison says were “historically underfunded and had a center of gravity” as leaders in spotlighting and advancing Black communities to receive transformative gifts.

Those organizations — 1Hood Media, Afrika Yetu, the Afro American Music Institute, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Balafon West African Dance Ensemble, BOOM Concepts, Hill Dance Academy Theatre, the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Kente Arts Alliance, the Legacy Arts Project, Manchester Bidwell Corporation, the New Horizon Theater, PearlArts Studios, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Ujamaa Collective and the Women of Visions artists collective — each received unrestricted gifts ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.

While large grants such as these are indeed transformational for nonprofits — particularly when that money is unrestricted, meaning it can be used for general operating costs rather than put toward specific programs — the declaration that these organizations are indeed Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures is equally vital.

“To be identified as treasure is intended to be a shift in perspective and an elevation of priority for the regional arts,” Howison says.

DS Kinsel, co-founder of BOOM Concepts, says being called one of the city’s Cultural Treasures has given his organization a sense of belonging among Pittsburgh’s most significant institutions.

“It’s a marker for us on our story, on our journey, on our legacy as we continue to evolve and become what we will be,” he says. “Being in more of a conversation with the older and more established organizations, I was able to connect with some elders that I was a little bit intimidated by … I was able to just have some space and time to learn.”

BOOM Concepts operates a campus of artists’ spaces across the city, including a flagship space in Garfield, since 2014 serving as an incubator and studio for emerging creators as well as hosting exhibits in its own space and beyond. Kinsel says that the grant has allowed BOOM Concepts to pursue more funding by hiring more staff and “step up as an organization.”

“Artists always make things go further,” he says. “We can turn a large gift into something that’s really long-standing.”

In a second phase of the initiative, the Heinz Endowments plans to identify more than 30 additional organizations for one-time gifts of $10,000 and additional support. Kinsel says that, whatever the size of the gift, the designation as a Cultural Treasure creates a sense of standing in the city.

“To be standing alongside organizations like Afro American Music Institute, the August Wilson Center, PearlArts, the Kelly Strayhorn — these are all organizations that we look up to.”