LILLY ENDOWMENT SUPPORTS ‘Religion and Early America’

Lilly Endowment’s Religion & Cultural Institutions Initiative supports “museums and other cultural institutions across the United States to develop exhibitions and educational programs that fairly and accurately portray the role of religion in the U.S. and around the world.”

The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the implementation of “Religion and Early America,” an initiative to explore and enhance the representation of the role of religion and belief systems in our galleries, interpretation and programs. This grant follows the receipt of a $96,000 planning grant from Lilly Endowment in 2021, used to gather input from internal, scholarly and community stakeholders to inform the initiative’s scope and goals.

This represents the largest foundation grant ever received by JYF. “Religion and Early America” enables JYF to enhance the topic of religion, a key aspect of early American life, across our museums and educational platforms. New gallery components, living-history experiences and programming will explore 17th- and 18th-century religions and belief systems and their role within the converging cultures highlighted in our mission and how those impacts continue into our modern era.

As we implement this initiative, JYF will invite our audiences, Board members, fellow museum professionals and external scholars to examine these concepts more deeply, explore different perspectives and engage in dialogue about religion’s role in early America through community conversations and a new biannual “Religion and Early America” symposium slated to begin in 2023.

As one of 16 grantees in this year’s initiative funding, JYF joins renowned museums and cultural institutions across the country, such as the Library of Congress and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in “strengthening the public’s understanding of religion and promoting respect among people of diverse faith traditions.”

—Lilly Endowment Inc., OUR WORK: Religion and Cultural Institutions

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—Emily McCarty, Development Writer

—Mariruth

Leftwich, Ph.D., Senior Director, Museum Operations and Education