The Montana Community Foundation, Inc. (MCF) announces $2,500 in grants made from the William B. Pratt Endowment Fund to support Montana Indigenous, folk, traditional, and media arts.

This year’s grant recipients include:

• $2,000 to Montana Playwrights Network (Clancy) to support live performances by Montana traditional tribal artists in the 2nd Annual Winter Lodge Rendezvous to be held on December 2 and 3 at the Helena Avenue Theatre.

• $500 to the Lewis and Clark Foundation (Great Falls) to support the performance and interpretative activities of dancer Louie Plant Sr., Ksanka [Standing Arrow Band] of the Ktunaxa (Kootenai) Tribe of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes of the Flathead Nation, at the Lewis and Clark Festival.

"This year we are pleased to support two non-Native cultural organizations presenting Montana tribal members as performers in their 2022 activities,” says William Pratt, who established the fund at MCF. “We encourage future applications from both Native and non-Native organizations, which knowledgeably and respectfully present Montana enrolled tribal members in sharing their traditional arts with audiences from within and outside their communities. We also encourage other projects that draw from the variety of Folk and Traditional Arts of Montana."

William “Bill” Pratt, a former employee at MCF, established the William B. Pratt Endowment Fund at MCF in 2018 because of his life-long interest in Indigenous, folk, traditional, and media arts. Bill has experience as a musician working in the folk tradition, as a living history and production artisan in forged iron, and as a producer in community video production and documentary and industrial films.

Bill established the fund as a legacy gift, but hopes, through this grant process, he can see some of the impact of his legacy in Montana and on the arts community while he is living.

“We are proud to be in our third year of awarding grants from this fund to support well-deserving organizations and artists helping to highlight Montana’s Indigenous culture and history through art,” says Elisa Fiaschetti, Program Director. “We are also grateful to Bill and the committee for their continued guidance and thoughtfulness on grantmaking from this fund.”

The 2023 grant cycle from the fund will open in January 2023. For questions, please contact Elisa Fiaschetti at (406) 443-8313 or elisa@mtcf.org. To contribute to the fund for future grantmaking, visit www.mtcf.org/Funds/William-B-Pratt-Fund.

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