Maryland Trust Withholds $5M Grant Recipient List | The Locally Times
A March 19 announcement confirmed $5 million in heritage grants, but state records do not identify the projects or individual award amounts.
The Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) announced the award of $5 million in grants for the African American Heritage Preservation Program, but the agency has not publicly released a list of the recipients. Public documents from March 19, 2026, show the MHT intended to release the names of the grant awardees. While these records signal that grant awards have been determined and a total funding amount established, the documents do not contain the specific list of recipients promised by their titles. A review of available public notices and meeting records does not yield a list of the organizations or projects that will receive a portion of the $5 million in funding. ## Records Confirm Intent, Not Disclosure The job posting that references the announcement and press release does not include the content of those documents, nor does it provide a link to where they can be found. The discrepancy between the titles of the internal documents and the public availability of their contents leaves the distribution of the funds unclear. The records confirm the MHT’s intent to announce the awardees, but do not show that a public disclosure of the recipients occurred. Records do not specify which historical preservation projects the $5 million grant program will support. ## Contrast with Other Grant Programs The lack of transparency surrounding the African American Heritage Preservation Program grants stands in contrast to other MHT activities. The absence of a public list of recipients for the $5 million program prevents scrutiny of the MHT's grant award process. The records do not specify which organizations were selected, the criteria used for their selection, or the individual amounts awarded to each, preventing a public accounting of how the Maryland Historical Trust allocated these funds.