The Cambridge Community Foundation launched a huge cultural initiative last month. Created in response to federal budget cuts, Culture Connects Cambridge is a $1.4 million, multi-year investment program supporting diverse arts and culture initiatives across the city.

The initiative will operate in two phases. The first, Sustain and Seed, is designed to support general operating costs of organizations. This comes in the form of $50,000 and $25,000 grants, awarded annually for three years. The second, Connect and Grow, will expand collaborations between organizations to realize bigger projects, building on that multi-year stability.

The grants are designed to foster belonging, increase access to equitable spaces, performances and opportunity to create and to generate gathering spaces and connection between artists and the general public.

“These organizations remind us that arts and culture are linked to everything we do. They are essential to building the Cambridge we want — one that is welcoming, resilient and connected,” said Geeta Pradhan, president of the Cambridge Community Foundation. “Artists have always been the tellers of truth, cultivators of belonging and drivers of imagination. When we invest in them, we invest in our shared future.”

The 14 organizations receiving grants include Community Art Center, Cambridge Community Center, Maria L. Baldwin Community Center, Multicultural Arts Center, Black History in Action for Cambridgeport, Boston Poetry Slam, Cambridge Carnival International, Cambridge Jazz Foundation, MIDDAY Movement Series, Soca Fusion, The Flavor Continues, Tunefoolery, The Dance Complex and The Foundry Consortium.

“Arts and culture have this very special power to be a conduit between past and future,” said Kris Manjapra, director of Black History in Action for Cambridgeport and professor of history and global studies at Northeastern University. “They create pathways and openings. Especially now in the moment when one of our greatest fears is getting stuck here.

The arts are proof that change is happening. That transformation is happening. They are our sanctuary.”

These organizations are majority BIPOC led and are focused on social justice, equity and access and creating diverse cultural environments. In a tense moment with federal funding dwindling and cuts to programs geared toward diversity, these funds will keep crucial local arts organizations alive and thriving.

“When artists share their work, they build bridges,” said Adria Katz, managing director of the Multicultural Arts Center. “They tell stories across differences. The power of the arts is that they are less didactic and more fluid. They are conversational. That’s how common ground is found. That’s how connection happens.”

ON THE WEB

Learn more about the initiative at cambridgecf.org/culture-connects-cambridge