Marilyn Hatza Memorial SHINE Grant 2027: 80 Unrestricted $5,000 Operating Grants for Small Maryland Humanities Nonprofits

Marilyn Hatza Memorial SHINE Grant 2027: 80 Unrestricted $5,000 Operating Grants for Small Maryland Humanities Nonprofits

Most grant money comes with strings. You write a proposal for a specific project, you spend it on that project, and you file a report proving you did exactly what you said. That model works, but it leaves out the day-to-day reality of running a small nonprofit: the rent on the historical society’s building, the part-time coordinator’s salary, the accounting software, the insurance, the electricity that keeps the lights on during a community storytelling night. The Marilyn Hatza Memorial SHINE Grant Program exists to help with exactly that kind of unglamorous, essential cost. For the FY27 cycle, Maryland Humanities plans to award 80 general operating support grants of $5,000 each to small and mid-size Maryland nonprofits whose work is grounded in the humanities.

SHINE stands for Strengthening the Humanities Investment in Nonprofits for Equity, and the “for Equity” part is not decoration. The program is deliberately built to reach organizations that often get shut out of competitive fundraising — groups without a dedicated grant writer, without a development department, and without the free time to chase restricted project money. If your organization runs on volunteer energy and a shoestring budget, this grant was designed with you in mind. Applications for the 2027 cycle are open now and close at 11:59 PM on September 13, 2026.

Key Details at a Glance

What the SHINE Grant Offers

The single most important feature of this grant is that it is general operating support. Unlike project or program grants, which restrict how you can spend the money, an operating grant can go toward whatever keeps your organization functioning. That might be staff wages, utilities, rent, technology, professional development, insurance, bookkeeping, or the countless small costs that never fit neatly into a project budget but are the difference between an organization that survives and one that quietly folds.

At $5,000, no one is going to fund a capital campaign with this award. But for a nonprofit operating on a total budget of, say, $80,000 a year, $5,000 is real money — it can cover several months of a part-time coordinator’s hours, a year of software subscriptions, or the cost of opening a small museum to the public one extra day each week. Because the funds are unrestricted, the grant also buys something harder to quantify: breathing room. Organizations can direct the money to their most urgent need rather than the need a funder happens to prioritize.

The program is seeded by the State of Maryland through the Maryland Historical Trust, and it reflects Maryland Humanities’ broader effort to reshape its grantmaking around equity and accessibility. That means the application itself is meant to be lighter and less burdensome than a typical foundation proposal, and applicants have access to support resources — including draft reviews, information sessions, and a published scoring rubric — well before the deadline.

Who Should Apply

The SHINE Grant is aimed squarely at organizations doing humanities work in Maryland. In practice, the funder describes eligible applicants as museums, historic sites, preservation and historical societies, and community and cultural organizations with a significant humanities focus. If your work involves history, literature, heritage, culture, language, philosophy, civics, or the interpretation of the human experience, and you deliver that work to Maryland audiences, you are likely in scope.

This is a strong fit if you are:

• A small county historical society that maintains an archive or a historic building and runs public programs on local history.
• A community organization that preserves and shares the heritage of a specific cultural, ethnic, or immigrant community in Maryland.
• A heritage area, cultural center, or grassroots museum operating with a lean staff or entirely on volunteers.
• An organization serving a region of Maryland or an audience that has historically been underserved by mainstream humanities funding.

It is a weaker fit — or outright ineligible — if your organization is primarily an arts producer. Groups whose mission, focus, or majority of programming is the creation or performance of art, including visual art, dance, theater, and music, are not eligible for SHINE. The line matters: a historical society that stages an occasional dramatic reading is still fundamentally a humanities organization, but a theater company that produces a season of plays is an arts organization and should look to Maryland State Arts Council funding instead.

Eligibility Requirements

To qualify for a FY27 SHINE Grant, an organization must meet each of the following criteria:

• Nonprofit status and good standing. You must be a nonprofit organization in good standing with the Internal Revenue Service, as determined by your IRS Form 990 and a charity check. Fiscal sponsorship arrangements are typically scrutinized closely, so confirm your standing before applying.
• Maryland location and registration. Your organization must be physically located and registered as a nonprofit in Maryland, and Maryland residents must be your primary constituents. This is a state program funded to serve Maryland communities, and out-of-state organizations do not qualify.
• Budget under $500,000. Your maximum total annual budget — counting both income and expenses — must be $500,000 or less. Organizations that exceed this cap are ineligible, because the program targets small and mid-size nonprofits that lack the capacity of larger institutions.
• Humanities as the core of your work. The humanities must make up a significant part of your programming — more than 70% of your annual work. An organization that does a little history on the side of a mostly-arts or mostly-social-services mission will not clear this bar.

Organizations that are federally or state-funded agencies are not eligible, and neither are groups whose primary work is the creation or performance of art, as noted above.

Priorities and How Applications Are Scored

Beyond the baseline eligibility rules, Maryland Humanities weights its decisions toward equity. The program explicitly prioritizes:

• Organizations serving geographic areas that have historically been underserved by Maryland Humanities.
• Organizations serving audiences traditionally underserved by the humanities.
• Small and mid-size nonprofits that may not have the staff capacity or resources to compete effectively for other fundraising.

Maryland Humanities publishes a scoring rubric so applicants can see exactly how their submissions will be evaluated, and it offers a DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) toolkit to help organizations frame their work. Reading the rubric before you write a single sentence is the smartest move you can make — it tells you what reviewers reward, and it lets you check your draft against the actual criteria rather than guessing. Because the reviewers are trained community members (Maryland Humanities recruits and trains a volunteer grant reviewer team), your application should be clear, concrete, and free of jargon. Write for a thoughtful neighbor, not a specialist.

Timeline and Deadlines

The FY27 cycle runs on a published schedule:

• May 28, 2026 — Guidelines made available.
• June 18, 2026 — Application portal opens.
• June 23, July 13, and August 4, 2026 — Virtual information sessions (each requires an RSVP).
• July 29 and September 8, 2026 — Drop-in virtual open office hours (1:00–5:00 PM), where staff answer questions one-on-one.
• September 8, 2026 — Deadline to submit a draft for review. This is optional but valuable: Maryland Humanities will look at your draft and give feedback before the final deadline.
• September 13, 2026, 11:59 PM — Application closes for all applicants. This is the hard deadline.
• Late November 2026 — Applicants notified of award decisions.
• January 2027 — Award funding disbursed to grantees.

Note the gap between the draft review deadline (September 8) and the final deadline (September 13). If you want feedback, you need to have a substantially complete application ready almost a week early. Treat the draft review as your real deadline, not the official one.

Application Process and Materials

Applications are submitted through Maryland Humanities’ online portal, linked from the grants page. While the exact form fields are set out in the FY27 guidelines, general operating support applications of this kind typically ask for:

• Basic organizational information, including your nonprofit registration and IRS status.
• A description of your mission and how the humanities sit at the center of your work.
• Information about the communities and audiences you serve, especially any historically underserved geographies or populations.
• A simple organizational budget showing total annual income and expenses (used to confirm you fall under the $500,000 cap).
• A narrative explaining what the unrestricted funds would help you sustain or strengthen.

Before you start, gather your most recent IRS Form 990, your organizational budget, and your nonprofit registration details. Confirm that your total budget is at or below $500,000 and that your humanities programming genuinely exceeds 70% of your annual work — these are the two numbers most likely to trip up an otherwise strong applicant.

Preparation Strategy

Because SHINE is designed to be accessible, the winning move is not to over-engineer your application. It is to be specific, honest, and clear. A few practical tips:

• Attend an information session and use office hours. The staff who run these sessions are the same people who shape the program. Ask your questions directly rather than guessing at answers.
• Submit a draft by September 8. Free feedback from the funder is the closest thing to an unfair advantage you will get. Very few applicants take advantage of it.
• Lead with your community. Reviewers are looking for organizations that serve underserved geographies and audiences. If that describes you, say so plainly and back it up with concrete detail about who walks through your doors.
• Be concrete about the humanities. Don’t just claim a humanities focus — show it. Name the exhibits, the oral history projects, the heritage programs, the archival work, the public lectures.
• Tell the truth about your budget. The program wants small organizations. A tight budget is a qualification here, not a weakness. Present it accurately.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Applying as an arts organization. If your primary work is producing or performing visual art, dance, theater, or music, you are ineligible. Read the ineligibility rules before you invest time.
• Missing the budget cap. Organizations with total annual budgets above $500,000 are out of scope, full stop.
• Waiting until September 13. The portal can be busy near the deadline, and you will have missed the September 8 draft review window. Start early.
• Being vague about impact. “We serve the community” tells reviewers nothing. Numbers, places, and specific programs tell them everything.
• Ignoring the scoring rubric. It is published for a reason. Applications that map cleanly to the rubric score better.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much can we receive? Each SHINE Grant is $5,000, and Maryland Humanities plans to award 80 of them in the FY27 cycle.

Can we spend it on anything? Effectively yes — it is general operating support, so you can apply it to core costs like staff, rent, utilities, technology, and other operational needs rather than a single restricted project.

Do we need a professional grant writer? No. The program is explicitly built to reach organizations without development staff, and support resources — information sessions, office hours, and draft reviews — are available to help.

We’re an arts group that also does some history. Are we eligible? Only if the humanities make up more than 70% of your annual programming and your primary mission is not the creation or performance of art. If art production is your core, you are not eligible.

When would we get the money? Applicants are notified in late November 2026, and funds are disbursed to grantees in January 2027.

Official Links and Next Steps

Start at the Maryland Humanities grants page: https://www.mdhumanities.org/grants/. There you can download the FY27 SHINE Grant guidelines, view the scoring rubric and DEIA toolkit, RSVP for information sessions and open office hours, and reach the online application portal. Read the guidelines in full, confirm you meet the four core eligibility criteria, and put both the September 8 draft review date and the September 13 final deadline on your calendar now. For a small Maryland nonprofit rooted in the humanities, $5,000 in flexible, unrestricted funding is a rare and genuinely useful thing — and this program was built to make it easy for you to ask.