Posted on November 19, 2008

MetLife Foundation Awards $1 Million in Museum and Community Connections Grants

The MetLife Foundation has announced grants totaling $1 million to sixteen museums to broaden arts programming and promote the museums as "centers of education without boundaries."

Awarded though the foundation's Museum and Community Connections program, the grants, which range in size from $20,000 to $100,000, will be used to fund exhibitions, artist residencies, and programs that extend the museums' reach into diverse communities and make art a part of people's lives. The program was created in 2007 and is open to institutions in twenty states.

The winning projects include the Columbus Museum of Art's initiative to exhibit works from the museum's permanent collection in communities throughout central Ohio; an exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art that addresses the process by which people interpret and learn about art; the Minneapolis-based Walker Art Center's project to expand its services to visitors with disabilities; and a traveling exhibition of southeast Alabama community-based folk art traditions developed by the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dotham.

"MetLife Foundation has a long history of partnering with museums to support educational opportunities for people of all ages," said MetLife Foundation president and CEO Sibyl Jacobson. "Museums enrich our lives in many ways, increase understanding of our world, and reflect diverse cultural traditions. MetLife Foundation is pleased to make investments in projects that reach out to people in imaginative ways."