February 26, 2024
Sasaki Foundation Launches 2024 Call for Proposals
Anna Scherling
Today, the Sasaki Foundation announces our 2024 Design Grants call for proposals. The Design Grants are an annual program that funds community experts to create design solutions for challenges in their neighborhoods in Greater Boston and the Gateway Cities. Since 2018, the Sasaki Foundation has received 91 applications, and has awarded 22 teams a total of $271,000 through the program.
The 2024 call is under the theme Shared Voices: Charting a Course for Community Action. The challenges in addressing environmental resilience, displacement, affordable housing, access to mobility choices, meaningful public engagement, and other social equity considerations in planning and design are so broad and complex, they require a shared approach to facilitate all the necessary conversations and deliver actionable solutions. Most of these challenges faced by Massachusetts communities are not limited to local neighborhoods—their effects are felt and shared across the Commonwealth and beyond. Multiple futures are at stake, and we can make a difference by acting now.
The Sasaki Foundation recognizes the need for interdisciplinary approaches, diverse community voices, and regional cooperation as key drivers to find shared solutions and create shared impact.
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We will award up to 3 grants of $15,000 each to winning teams, who will spend 10 months (September through June) working on their proposed projects. Grants also include access to volunteer design experts.
Proposals must have a community focus located in Greater Boston or the Massachusetts Gateway Cities. Applicants must be teams of two to four individuals. At least one individual must be from the project’s focus community.
If you have ideas about community building and wellbeing, housing or transit inequities, or climate change, we encourage you to apply for one of our design grants, and to share this opportunity with your networks.
The deadline to apply is May 1, 2024, at noon. Finalist teams will present their project ideas in person at Pitch Night, a public event on June 6, 2024. We will announce the winning teams on June 20, 2024.
Questions? In addition to the overview video and FAQs, you can sign up for a 15-minute slot at our office hours, every Friday in March and April from noon to 1 p.m.
Want to build a team? Meet potential team members at one of our Design Grants Mixers, in person at 5:30 p.m. on April 2, and virtual at noon on April 3.