Dear Wisconsin Humanities friends and supporters,

Dear Wisconsin Humanities friends and supporters,

In April 2025, Wisconsin Humanities lost the federal funding that had supported our work for more than 50 years.

Instead of stepping back, we adapted. We stabilized operations, listened to you and your neighbors, maintained key programs, and built a path forward.

Our 2025 Impact Report highlights what that looked like in practice: support for community-led cultural and civic projects, statewide listening sessions, nationally recognized leadership development through Community Powered, and stories that connected people across Wisconsin through Love Wisconsin and Human Powered.

Inside the report, you'll discover:

• How Wisconsin Humanities continued serving communities throughout the state despite the loss of federal funding
• Community projects exploring Hmong cultural traditions, Indigenous arts, hip-hop history, oral histories, youth civic engagement, local history, and cultural festivals
• Stories from Wisconsinites who are preserving traditions, mentoring youth, building belonging, and strengthening their communities
• Seven Listening Sessions that brought together educators, artists, civic leaders, and residents to help shape Wisconsin Humanities' next chapter
• The impact of Love Wisconsin and Human Powered, which continued amplifying stories of identity, resilience, culture, and community across the state

One year later, we're proud of the progress we've made together. This includes re-opening our grant program, launching the Community Powered Tribal Health Initiative in partnership with Wisconsin tribal communities, and bringing tradition bearers, artists, and community members together through Wisconsin By the People and Tradition Bearers, Live!.

We could not have done it without you. Thank you. 

We invite you to explore the report and see how communities across Wisconsin continue to connect, learn, engage, and belong.

Dear Wisconsin Humanities friends and supporters,

Dear Wisconsin Humanities friends and supporters,

Conversations can be focused or meandering, in-depth or in passing, life-changing or forgettable. They can offer wisdom and make us laugh. Talking with each other is such a huge part of being human! I love how the humanities give us ways to put our oh-so-human chattiness to good use.

When we re-opened the WH grant program this spring, we prioritized projects that use conversation strategically, bringing people together to build trust. It was uplifting to see all the projects proposed. The ones we funded facilitate fruitful conversation around cultural traditions, history, public policy, community challenges and opportunities, and more. They are intentional about gathering people with varying backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs, from rural northwest Wisconsin to the urban and suburban southeast, the Driftless, and parts in between. Topics range from AI data centers to rural housing, from the history and culture around caring for sturgeon habitat to Mexican fiber arts traditions. Please take a minute to learn about them.

We were happy to pick up the conversation begun at our November listening session in Milwaukee. As you can see in the photo above, I had a chance to chat with Joel Cencius of Arts at Large (left) and Prof. Arijit Sen of UW-Milwaukee, along with other nonprofit leaders and community-engaged humanities scholars, about how to work together to mobilize the strengths we identified last fall. That practical thinking about the future is what WH is doing for our work throughout the state. ADD YOUR VOICE to WH's conversation about the future by completing the survey described below. We need to hear from people all across the state who bring a variety of perspectives to the work we do!

A brand new conversation I can't wait to share with you will happen this summer. We're staging an event you won't want to miss. Tradition Bearers, Live! will celebrate the creativity, cultural traditions, and personal histories that help make our communities vibrant. Wisconsin folk and traditional artists will be joined on stage by folklorists who engage them in dynamic conversations, storytelling, and demonstrations. Stay tuned for details about the artists and how to register to attend!

Dear Wisconsin Humanities friends and supporters,

After raving to you about our statewide Listening Sessions (thanks again to everyone who contributed), now you can read what we learned about the strengths people see in their communities, the challenges they face, and how they want to move forward.

The  Listening Session summary on our website highlights what we heard from program partners, supporters, civic leaders, librarians, historical society members, teachers, and other old and new friends. If you want to be reminded of why you live in Wisconsin, spend a couple of minutes absorbing the thoughtfulness and the spirit of the culture workers and civic leaders who make our state special.

WH board members like Susan Frost of Green Bay loved hosting sessions in their hometowns. Susan shared one of the biggest takeaways: “The energy produced by the evening and the networking opportunity was invigorating...Already by the end of the evening, seeds of collaboration were being planted. People left wanting more.”

Participants’ desire to gather again came through loud and clear everywhere we went. So did the need for more thinking about engaging youth, finding volunteers, creatively collaborating, and facing changing local demographics, to name a few of the topics that came up.

Cultural leaders’ request that WH do more to nurture networks of mutual support is prompting us to think in new ways. WH doesn’t have the resources to launch a major new statewide program today. But together with you, we can hone the vision and find new resources. Already, local partners have stepped up! A second gathering is happening in Milwaukee in May, hosted by Listening Session participant Arts At Large.

At every Listening Session, people spoke honestly about their challenges. But participants were most eager to talk about their communities' strengths, and the can-do attitude that makes good things happen. That Wisconsin roll-up-your-sleeves culture is why WH is still here, a year after DOGE tried to eliminate us. Thank you for rolling your sleeves up with us then and now! Let's keep going together!

Training for you!

Our Director of Community Powered, Chrissy Widmayer, has returned to Wisconsin Humanities to restart the nationally award-winning training program she was instrumental in creating! This great news is possible thanks to a partnership with the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at UW-Madison, where Chrissy is also a postdoctoral fellow in Nordic Folklife. Thanks to the partnership with CSUMC, Chrissy is collaborating with Nordic American organizations to offer Community Powered workshops that teach practical humanities skills like oral history interviewing, while her research looks at how Community Powered workshops build organizations’ capacity, connections, and community.

The first workshops will take place online through the Norwegian American Genealogical Center and Naeseth Library. They will teach how to document and share family stories using tools like interviewing, storytelling, folklore, and archiving.

Want to join a workshop on Zoom? See descriptions and register.
Oral History & Interviewing: April 21 &  April 23 10:00am-12:00pm
Telling the Family Story: April 28 10:00am -11:30am
Introduction to Folklore: May 9 10:00am-11:00am
Contextualizing Your Family History: May 12 10:00am-11:00am
Basics of Archiving: May 19 10:00am-11:00am

Stay tuned for more news on Community Powered’s return, including updates on the Community Powered Tribal Health Initiative, and more workshops to come!

Dear Wisconsin Humanities Friends and Supporters,

Is your mailbox full of seed catalogues? I love Seed Savers Exchange, an organization devoted to "collecting, regenerating, and sharing heirloom seeds, plants, and stories." In addition to introducing me to great pickling cukes, I love that they know it's plants' stories that move us to protect them -- as much as it's their flavor or fruitfulness.

The same goes for the protective power of stories about people, which can transform how we think, feel, and take action to help others.

It makes me so happy to more confidently let myself plan how WH will renew our work with you (if federal funds arrive, as was recently voted on by Congress). What sharing of each other's stories will have the most impact today? I look forward to your help with answering that question in the coming months, as WH charts a renewed path forward.

In this exceptionally difficult time, everyone at WH feels specially called upon to bring the power of the humanities to bear on our biggest challenges -- challenges that can only be overcome by stories (of people AND of plants!) that contain truth and meaning that are rich with the dreams and beliefs of every one of us.

This holiday season will be the first since my mother passed at the incredible age of 102. I'm grateful to my mom for a lot of things, but one that stands out is her eternal optimism. Even when she watched the news -- frequently telling me "It's scary!" -- she would quickly turn to something positive. I'm grateful for that insistence on being hopeful, and what it taught me about weathering challenging times.

Dena

Dear Wisconsin Humanities Friends and Supporters,

Punxsutawney Phil may not be looking for his shadow yet, but at WH we've poked our heads out and... surprise! It looks like we may have a lot more to germinate this spring.

That's because we got positive news from Washington: A federal “minibus” budget bill for 2026 was approved by Congress with funds for state humanities councils in the same amount we were supposed to have received in 2025. What a turnaround from last April, when this federal support was terminated! I can’t express how grateful I am that you stuck with us, advocating for WH and contributing financially.

While we're thrilled, we need to be cautious as we wait for the National Endowment for the Humanities to release the funds -- some time this spring in the best case. Congress appears determined to make federal agencies like the NEH spend their funds as instructed in the budget legislation. That's why we're hopeful, and eager for spring!

Anticipating these federal funds, we are:

• Turning ideas we heard from you in Listening Sessions into program plans
• Building financial resilience so we are much less reliant on federal support

And we're ramping up programs already!

Community Powered training is preparing to restart, with a new model. Chrissy Widmayer, Community Powered’s director, is back with WH half-time (thanks to our partnership with UW-Madison's Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, where she is also a post-doctoral fellow.) To assess communities' training needs, she would love your thoughts. You can help us by taking a brief survey about which workshops could be useful for you, or people you know.

The WH grant program is open with a Spring Grant round deadline, March 16. Stay tuned for news about future grant rounds, which we will announce after we receive the appropriated federal funds.

Let's hope the good news keeps coming, and that we can welcome spring with a blossoming of cultural programs to warm our hearts and lift our spirits.

Dear Wisconsin Humanities Friends and Supporters,

Happy New Year! We’re thrilled to kick the year off by reopening our grant program. Huge thanks to everyone who gave a year-end gift, helping us to restart programming. With you and the rest of our statewide community as advocates and supporters of the public humanities, I'm sure we'll be able to bring back even more!

For over fifty years, our grant program funded projects in every corner of the state that invite Wisconsinites to explore culture and history, share stories and ideas, and strengthen our connections with one another.

In 2026, we’re putting the grant program to work in some special ways.

•  Wisconsin and America at 250 is our call for projects that will help Wisconsinites reflect on the nation’s semiquencentennial, aka America’s 250th, from a Wisconsin perspective today
•  Converse & Connect encourages nonprofits to create projects that are intentional about bringing community members together for fruitful conversations on topics they care about

And as always, we will continue to support Wisconsin nonprofits’ creative ideas for public humanities projects that feed our curiosity, make new connections, and maybe even help communities’ dreams come true.

It’s a hopeful way to start the year, and I’m so glad you are here with us to get it rolling!

Interested in applying for a grant? 
The Spring 2026 Grant Round is now accepting applications. Go to our website to find everything you need, including details about our two thematic priorities. Whether you are a past applicant or new, watch our recorded webinar for help with eligibility and requirements. After watching, you can contact Meghan.dudle@wisconsinhumanities with questions. We love to consult with you personally, but the cancellation of our federal grant means we’re at half our former staff. We will do our best to help you.