MInneapolis' Coffee House Press is one of 16 organizations from Minnesota and the Dakotas to receive a $100,000 grant from the Bush Foundation. The Community Creativity Cohort is a one-time program designed by the Bush Foundation and intended to encourage organizations to integrate the arts into everyday public life. The sixteen organizations are Coffee House Press, the First People's Fund, PIllsbury House and Theatre, Upstream Arts, Lanesboro Arts, North Dakota Council on the Arts, the Matthews Opera House and Arts Center, West Broadway Business and Area Coalition, Intermedia Arts, Theatre B, Native American Community Development Institute, Children's Theatre Company, High School for Recording Arts, the Duluth-Superior Symphony Association, the White Earth Land Recovery Project, and the Center for Hmong Arts and Talents.
The 16 one-time grants come with no restrictions. Each organization will work with the foundation over the next six months to work with efforts to engage the community and build leadership. The 16 organizations will also meet together twice over the next six months.
The grant seems tailor-made for Coffee House, which, over the last few years, has worked hard to incorporate its original mission--publishing high-quality literary books--with a broader mission to bring literary arts to people through a variety of ways.
"This is an incredible opportunity for us," Coffee House publisher Chris Fischbach said in a prepared statement. "Once we realized that publishing books is just one way that we can achieve our real goal--connecting writers and readers--everything changed, and led to additional kinds of programming.
"This grant will allow us to continue to adapt, to grow, and to learn from our cohorts."
