This grant will support the Religious Literacy at Boston Children’s Museum program. The museum will hire a senior staff member with expertise in religion and the humanities who will lead a team that seeks to integrate religion into the museum’s exhibitions, programs, staff culture and collections.

This grant will enable the museum to establish an endowment for a new curator of Religious Community History and an endowment for a new fellowship program for early career curators in religious history collections. Through exhibitions, public programs, digital platforms and publications, the new curator will provide the public with ongoing accurate and authentic illustrations of the central role of religion in shaping Chicago history and culture.

This grant will support an immersive family exhibition that will showcase five of the world’s most sacred spaces with a goal for visitors to learn about and develop respect for diverse religious traditions.

This grant will enable the museum to establish an endowment to support actor interpreters for religion programs and funding to undertake and complete the archeological excavation and the architectural work needed to reconstruct the original First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Va.

This grant will support the Promised Land as Proving Ground program, which will incorporate new religion storylines into its interpretive programs, restore an existing cabin in the recreated 1836 Prairietown and hire a full-time curator in religion to guide research and program development.

This grant will enable the museum to establish an endowment for staff and programs to make religion a central component of the museum’s ongoing work and mount an exhibition in collaboration with the New York Historical Society that will incorporate religion into the reinstallation of the Native American Gallery.

This grant will enable the museum to mount an exhibition that will explore multiple religious and cultural responses to the human experience of death. The grant will also help establish an endowment for a postdoctoral fellowship program for a permanent, rotating position in the anthropology of religion.

This grant will support the Engaging Lived Religion in the 21st Century program, which aims to expand the museum’s ability to mount thoughtful exhibitions on religion that explore the way it shows up in everyday life and that acknowledge the diversity within religious traditions.

This grant will enable the museum to create a permanent exhibition that will explore the origin stories of four North American indigenous tribes — the Seneca in the Northeast, the Yup’ik in the Arctic, the Akimel O’odham and the Navajo in the Southwest — in an immersive and educational presentation that seeks to educate visitors and the online public about the diversity and beauty of indigenous religion and spiritual practices

This grant will enable the museum to establish an endowment for a new Assistant Curator of Islamic Art. Working in collaboration with Islamic communities in the greater Boston area and beyond, the new assistant curator will help to create exhibitions, publications and public programs that will illuminate the importance of religion within the richness and diversity of Islamic cultures.

This grant will support the World Faiths Initiative, which will strengthen the museum’s capacity to draw on its collections to present exhibitions and programs on religion, faith and spirituality. The museum will also develop a comprehensive religion program to provide in-depth artistic and interpretive materials about major world religions.

This grant will enable the museum to establish an endowed curator position on faith and religion, strengthen public programming on religion and war, enhance online exhibitions and resources on religion and increase its collection of religious objects and materials. Through this program, the museum will strengthen its capacities to explore the enduring impact of World War I on religion and faith and vice versa.

This grant will support The Light Here Kindled: Providence, Manitou and the Legacy of America’s Founding Faiths program that seeks to strengthen and expand the museum’s capacity to incorporate the crucial role of faith, particularly the beliefs and practices of Reformed Christianity, into its interpretations of Colonial Plymouth and the people of the indigenous Patuxet.

This grant will support the Creative Encounters: Living Religions in America program. During the summer of 2022, the annual 10-day Smithsonian Folklife Festival will explore and display diverse religious communities and experiences in the United States and highlight the stories, everyday religious practices and experiences of Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Native American, Sikh, and other religious traditions and provide a place of encounter to foster greater understanding and respect.

This grant will support the Global Religions of Africa Initiative, which aims to explore the impact and global relevance of Africa’s religious beliefs and practices through exhibitions on religion and an expansive slate of educational and public outreach programs.

This grant will enable the museum to establish a new Center for the Public Understanding of Religion in American History and to create a dedicated 3,500 square foot gallery space focusing on the role and influence of religion in American history and culture.

This grant will support The Arts of Devotion program, which aims to bring the museum’s art collections into more direct and meaningful conversation with contemporary religious practices to help visitors understand the richness and diversity of pre-modern and contemporary Islamic, Buddhist, Zen and Hindu religious traditions and practice.

This grant will support the Inspiring Wonder initiative, which will expand the museum’s capacity to help students and visitors explore religious faith, beliefs and practices through art.