27 Sep Music Access Miami Mini & Momentum Grant Announcement

There’s a steady beat of change resonating across Greater Miami’s youth music landscape and we are excited to be working with just a few of those organizations and leaders who are building this change through music. This year, Music Access Miami launched its second cycle of investments for grassroots organizations serving youth through music, offering two tracks for funding and support, with the return of our Mini Grants and the launch of our new Momentum Grants. We are honored to announce the next wave of change-making grant partners who are shaping the music education field. 

Music Access Miami is providing funding to three incredible organizations through our Momentum Grants – multi-year investments in Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) led organizations to assist with scaling, expanding and/or deepening their impact. Teeny Violini, The Children’s Voice Chorus, and Evolutionary Arts Life Foundation will each receive $450,000 over three years to support their expansion into new target areas, the creation and strengthening of new and existing programs and teaching curriculums, and the professional development and growth of their teams.   

Recognizing that advancing equity and driving systems change must be a central tenet of our work across the community, our goal was to invest in leaders building change from within their communities. Moreover, as we continue to use data to help guide us towards better decision making, we understand that solutions must be culturally responsive to their communities, oftentimes meaning leadership must reflect the community it serves. The national Lewis Prize for Music cites this in their 2021 report, Midcasting towards Just Futures, stating that:  

“Black, Indigenous, and other leaders of color (BIPOC) often share experiential knowledge and robust analysis of circumstances of marginalization with the young people they serve. Correspondingly, BIPOC leadership often includes a capacity to engage culturally specific practices and traditions that can offer affirmation via representation while engendering CYD [Creative Youth Development] spaces as safe and familiar. In addition to supporting organizations in these explicit ways, BIPOC leadership often had an impact on internal justice orientation, direct service provision, partnership and movement building support. The following examples demonstrate the ways in which BIPOC leadership is notably advantageous to CYD organizations looking to affect systems change.”  

For the next three years, we are honored to support the work and missions of these three visionary BIPOC organizations and leaders in our community through Momentum Grants. In addition to the grant funds, Grant Partners will receive professional development opportunities to aid in their continued growth and capacity.

Music Access Miami also relaunched our annual Mini Grants application. Recognizing that, too often, small grassroots organizations struggle to obtain the same funding opportunities as their larger counterparts, our Mini Grants opportunities prioritized organizations with budgets under $500,000 annually. Eight organizations will receive these one-time grants of up to $7,500 to support the organization’s programmatic and operational costs. This exceptional group of Grant Partners are providing one-of-a-kind, music education services to youth in our community, such as no-cost social skills programs for neuro-diverse teens and young adults (Miami Jam Sessions), and courses in musical art expression that elevate the mood, minds, and lives of underserved youth (A-Stone Music Therapy). In Allapattah, students will learn songwriting, music production, and even produce their own album (Arts Prevails Project), while Miami-Dade County Public School third to fifth graders will explore orchestral repertoire through Orchestra Miami‘s Carnegie Hall Link Up program. Organizations will meet students in their environments by creating enriching experiences during the school day (Friends of South Florida Music; Music Mentor Network), and others, like VIA Academy, will accommodate them during out-of-school time through immersive summer programs. Students will learn and develop musical and life skills through an array of music genres, like hip hop, classical music, and at Jazz Education Community Coalition, they will use jazz performance to build confidence and self-esteem.  

Together, our Mini and Momentum Grant Partners will help shape a better Miami for all youth – from Florida City to the City of Miami Gardens – by using the transformational power of music. In doing so, they strengthen the systems that give young people the tools they need to thrive and ultimately contribute to the vibrancy, creativity, and innovation of our communities and larger city.  

To learn more about our Grant Partners and their work, visit the Music Access Miami website.