Awards & Grants

Since 1991, the Songs of Hope™ performers have presented more than 400 concerts for audiences exceeding 90,000. Year after year, Songs of Hope™ receives bookings from festival organizers, cities (for their summer concert series), conferences, schools, hospitals, social service agencies, summer youth camps, and others. Each summer, there are many more booking requests than we can satisfy.

Songs of Hope™ has a reputation for artistic excellence and outstanding youth services. Among the many awards and grants garnered by the project are the following:

• In 2003 and 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded Access to Artistic Excellence grants to support special Songs of Hope™ tours along the Mississippi River.

• The first project in 1991 received an Award of Excellence from Readers Digest, Inc. and Sister Cities International in recognition of its unique international concepts and high quality.

• In 1996, in recognition of its services to low-income youth locally, Songs of Hope™ received a Peacemaker Award from the Office of the Minnesota Lieutenant Governor.

• Three times, Songs of Hope™ was one of just 50 semifinalists nationwide for a prestigious Presidential Coming Up Taller Award. Ten CUT Awards are given annually to the top youth arts projects in the nation by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the NEA, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

• Since 1994, the project’s umbrella arts organization, Sounds of Hope, Ltd., has applied annually for funding from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC), a state-funded nonprofit agency. In a testament to the reputation of the summer program, Songs of Hope™ has received MRAC public funding every year from 1994 to 2008. Few projects are able to claim similar levels of success in MRAC’s competitive funding process.

• Songs of Hope™ has received funding support from prominent foundations and corporations such as Macy’s Stores, Target Stores, Jostens Foundation, Cargill AgHorizons, Travelers Insurance Companies, 3M, The Saint Paul Foundation, General Mills Foundation, and many others.