June 2025–April 2026
Springfield, MA and Brooklyn, NY
How can communities create space for civic discourse? Through Civic Spaces, CultureHouse’s first cohort-based program, we are working with two organizations to pilot pop-up spaces for civic discussion and action in their own communities. By creating spaces for people to connect around local, regional, and national topics, we’re cultivating communities that are resilient in times of crisis and have a grassroots foundation for building back better.
In collaboration with Project for Public Spaces and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we are partnering with GrowHouse Design + Development Group in Brooklyn, NY, and Springfield Cultural Partnership in Springfield, MA for the program. Selected in June of 2025, both grantees will launch their indoor pop-up spaces in early 2026. Each organization receives funding and hands-on support to create indoor pop-up spaces that strengthen civic and social life. Spanning 18 months, the initiative helps local partners launch programming, build operational capacity, and foster lasting community connections in neighborhoods that often lack dedicated civic gathering spaces.
Meet the grantees
GrowHouse Design + Development Group
Since 2017, GrowHouse has been serving historically Black Brooklyn, working with Black youth, cultural leaders, and low-to moderate-income residents in Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, and Flatbush to reclaim and steward community assets amid ongoing gentrification. Through the Civic Spaces program, GrowHouse will create a new hub in Bed-Stuy—a welcoming space for civic engagement, intergenerational learning, land stewardship, and grassroots organizing, strengthening community resilience and preserving Bed-Stuy’s cultural legacy.
Springfield Cultural Partnership
Dedicated to fostering civic engagement through the arts, Springfield Cultural Partnership serves Springfield’s diverse community—particularly Black and Latinx residents—by building connection, creativity, and action. Through the Civic Spaces program, the Partnership will transform a vacant, street-level space in Tower Square into a free and accessible hub for artists and residents to gather, create, and engage in civic programming, showcasing how the arts can spark public dialogue, inspire organizing, and drive local change.
Partners
