African American Community Fund Grants Dashboard

Please note some of these grants were sponsorships and did not require reports, and other reports were not submitted during the specified period.

Grantee: South Bend Civic Theatre
Project: 2024 Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Productions
Amount: $4,000.00
Date Approved: 10/17/2023
Final Report Submitted: 4/3/2025

Funds supported South Bend Civic Theatre’s (CIVIC) 2024 Equity, Diversity & Inclusion productions, including continued work on the August Wilson Cycle and other initiatives that use community theater to foster inclusivity. The IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Task Force meets regularly to identify and engage underrepresented voices in South Bend, ensuring that the CIVIC’s stories reflect the city’s diversity.

In February, the CIVIC produced August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, exploring themes of family legacy and confronting the ghosts of the past. Through educational packets, lesson plans, and pre/post-show discussions, the CIVIC facilitated meaningful EDI and CRT conversations with hundreds of students and thousands of patrons. The August Wilson Project continues to grow, with a school field trip performance at Riley High School reaching over 600 students from all South Bend high schools. Plans for 2025 include expanding the project to Mishawaka and Penn schools with Seven Guitars, aiming to double student attendance.

Also in 2024, a professionally recorded version of Better Homes: The Play aired on WNIT, reaching thousands and spotlighting the issue of redlining in South Bend. The CIVIC reports increased community buy-in, partnerships, sponsorships, and patronage. BIPOC community members have expressed that the CIVIC offers “real diversity.” Collaborations include 100 Black Men of Greater South Bend, Divine Nine organizations, Gentlemen and Scholars, Connect To Be The Change, IUSB’s Civil Rights Heritage Center, Africana Studies Programs, the Charles Black Center, and the MLK Dream Center.

New partnerships with west side branches of the St. Joseph County Public Library and an expanded Title I field trip series will deepen engagement with students and underserved youth. A continuing challenge is scalability—reaching more people and communities. To address this, the CIVIC is exploring a longer tour for Seven Guitars in 2025, with regional performances that could double patron numbers.

Grantee: South Bend Symphony Orchestra
Project: 2024 MLK Jr. Community Celebration Events
Amount: $3,000.00
Date Approved:  10/17/2023
Final Report Submitted: 10/16/2024

South Bend Symphony Orchestra (SBSO) received funds for the 2024 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, including the “Celebration for a King” community-focused series. The Celebration for a King concert series was one of the first priorities undertaken by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee in 2020, and has grown to be one of the most unifying and relationship-building activities that the organization undertakes each year.

The Symphony tracks and records attendance for each event. Additionally, the Symphony completes audience participation surveys throughout the year via email and at concerts. The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee also collects feedback from community leaders and stakeholders. For the 2024 Celebration for a King events, the Symphony reported that attendence increased from 300 participants in 2023 to 786 in 2024.

The primary strategy engaged to achieve success in this program was to bring the programming directly to their collaborators with the intention of breaking barriers to participation. After many careful conversations with community leaders and other constituents, it became apparent that the Symphony’s primary performance venues were not necessarily the places where community members wanted to experience performance. By bringing the Celebration for a King series into community spaces, the Symphony was able to engage with a new audience segment and were able to create new art by collaborating with the musicians at each of the host churches. The Symphony also ensured that the Celebration for a King series was promoted as aggressively as all other concert events during the Season. And, to combat the financial barrier faced by many, these performances are always offered at no cost to the audience.

The Symphony reports that the primary challenge since the creation of the concert series has been growing the Season and gaining trust among their community partners. Over time, as the Symphony has continued to follow-through on the productions each year, audiences have grown and relationships have become so much stronger than before this series began.