Meet Our 2025 Round 1 Grantees
NJCH Announces $205,716 in Grant Awards to 17 Organizations
The New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH) has awarded 17 grants totaling $205,716 in its most recent grant round. These funds will support a diverse array of projects in 10 counties across the Garden State, highlighting NJCH’s ongoing efforts to make the vital work of the humanities available to all New Jerseyans.
“Public humanities work can encompass a broad range of activities, but at their core, each of these projects helps tell the story of who we are as people,” said Carin Berkowitz, Ph.D., executive director of NJCH. “Some of that story involves well-known figures and places of the past. Much of it has been hidden from public view within our own local communities. And still more is being added to that story each day.”
Incubation Grants
Action Grants
Counties Represented
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A number of the awarded projects received initial funding or development resources through prior involvement with NJCH.
- The Willingboro Community Development Corporation’s historical investigation into the township’s “Futuro House” began as a project within NJCH’s Community History Program.
- The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice’s Queer History Physical & Virtual Archive previously received an NJCH Incubation Grant.
- CavanKerry Press previously received an NJCH COVID-19 Response Grant.
- The Asbury Park African-American Music Project's archival and oral history work has been supported by prior NJCH grants.
- Ritual4Return’s humanities-based theater program for citizens returning from incarceration was implemented in Newark with the support of an NJCH grant and was the recipient of NJCH’s 2024 Stanley N. Katz Prize for Excellence in Public Humanities.
Featured Grantees
Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions
Camden, (Incubation / $9,921)To support "Capturing Stormwater Stories in the City of Camden," encompassing individuals' oral accounts of environmental impacts. Read more
CavanKerry Press
Fort Lee, (Incubation / $7,000)To support the Poetry Heals Program, a series of literary workshops for physicians/clinicians in hospitals and students in medical schools designed to build empathy and understanding. Read more
Ritual4Return Inc.
Lambertville, (Action / $15,000)To support two cohorts of Ritual4Return, a 12-week program through which returning citizens use humanities and theater techniques to process their incarceration and life experiences and take part in a re-welcoming to their communities. Read more
Montclair Film Festival Inc.
Montclair, (Action / $10,000)To support an after-school documentary filmmaking class for teens in Paterson, NJ. Read more
Newark History Society
Newark, (Action / $15,000)To support a weeklong series of events honoring Cudjo Banquante, an enslaved man who served as a soldier in the American Revolution and became Newark's first documented Blank businessman. Read more
Thematic Areas
Local Histories and Untold Stories
The Intersection of Arts & Humanities
Grantee List
- 120 East State, Trenton (Incubation / $15,000)
- Asbury Park African-American Music Project (2025), Asbury Park (Action / $15,000)
- Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, Camden (Incubation / $9,921)
- Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice (2025), Princeton (Action / $10,000)
- CavanKerry Press, Fort Lee (Incubation / $7,000)
- coLAB Arts, Inc., New Brunswick (Incubation / $15,000)
- Mahwah Museum, Mahwah (Action / $4,000)
- Monmouth Museum, Lincroft (Incubation / $10,000)
- Montclair Film Festival Inc., Montclair (Action / $10,000)
- Newark History Society, Newark (Action / $15,000)
- Passaic County Department of Cultural & Historic Affairs, Wayne (Incubation / $15,000)
- Piscataway Public Library, Piscataway (Action / $13,750)
- Preservation New Jersey, Trenton (Incubation / $15,000)
- Ritual4Return Inc., Lambertville (Action / $15,000)
- Stockton University South Jersey Culture & History Center, Galloway Township (Incubation / $15,000)
- The Moving Architects, Montclair (Incubation / $6,325)
- Willingboro Community Development Corporation (2025), Willingboro (Action / $15,000)
