Two-thirds of Wyoming Humanities’ employees will lose their jobs at the start of June. That’s after the nonprofit lost its federal funding back in April.
Wyoming Humanities is downsizing significantly after the nonprofit lost $850,000 of federal funding in April. The National Endowment for the Humanities terminated grants across the country last month, eliminating the lifeline that accounted for 80% of the nonprofit’s operating budget.
The organization’s board made the decision to lay off four of its six current employees, who will stay on board until the end of May. That includes Executive Director and CEO Shawn Reese, Executive Producer Emy DiGrappa, Program Coordinator Lucas Fralick and Director of Advancement Katie Beuman Parrish.
Newly appointed interim Executive Director Chloé Flagg said it’s been a tumultuous last few months and the board has had to make some “really unfortunate and challenging decisions.”
“ We are recalibrating and trying to figure out how we can be bring people together in this limited capacity and what that looks like,” she said.
Flagg previously served as the organization’s director of grants and programs. She said it will no longer be able to provide sponsorships for festivals and events, and won’t be producing any more of its podcasts, like What’s Your WHY? and Winds of Change.
The 55-year-old nonprofit will also no longer be able to host the Smithsonian Museum on Main Street exhibits, which travel to rural towns across the country. It’s hoping another organization can carry that partnership and still bring the Voices and Votes exhibit to Wyoming.
The exhibit seeks to serve as a springboard for discussions about who has the right to vote, what are the freedoms and responsibilities of citizens, and whose voices will be heard.
“ Other programs that we had in the works, other partnerships that we had lined up for live streaming opportunities and collaborative discussions and panels and things like that, those are done,” added Flagg.
Moving forward, the organization wants to be a hub for cultural institutions across the state. Flagg described the vision as leaning into being “a place where we can share and exchange resources, gather and collaborate for projects when all of us right now are limited in funds.”
In Flagg’s opinion, collaboration and partnership are more important than ever, and the nonprofit can help to bring people together to problem solve.
“Together we can help together decide some kind of guidance, so that we are all not floundering out there,” she said. “I think in rural Wyoming, we have this tendency to be a little more individualistic and to think that we can handle and manage on our own. But I think in this very instance, it's time for us to recognize that we do need to come together.”
Wyoming Humanities received $200,000 from the Mellon Foundation at the end of April with a $50,000 match grant, which Flagg said prevented a complete staff layoff.
Wyoming Humanities will continue its grant programs for humanities organizations and projects around the state, thanks to funding from the state Legislature.
However, it hasn’t yet received a definitive answer about another Smithsonian exhibit called Many Voices, One Nation, which is based on a permanent exhibit of the same name and integrates customized community-specific content. It explores the many cultures behind the Latin emblem on the nation’s seal: E pluribus unum, or “out of many, one.”
“ I do believe it's moving on in some iteration,” said Flagg. “The details exactly of how that is working and how that partnership is moving forward is still being finalized.”
Flagg said the plan is also to keep the Pronghorn Reads program afloat, which is an online monthly reading challenge for bookworms of all ages. That program helps the nonprofit maintain its affiliation with the Center for the Book, which is a community of organizations promoting literacy that are affiliated with the Library of Congress.
