May was a month full of celebration, momentum, and meaningful moments across the Foundation. We also have some exciting news to share: the HGB team has welcomed Robyn Frank as our new Senior Community Engagement Manager! Robyn brings a background in the arts, marketing, and community engagement, and we are so thrilled to have her with us.

In our Empowering Youth vertical, spring has been in full swing across all of our programs.

At BridgeUP+OUT, the month closed with a milestone we have been looking forward to all year: the graduation of our senior Scholars! This past week, Scholars gathered in the Bronx to celebrate the graduating Class of 2026, hosted at the event venue of a Cardinal Hayes alumni. Throughout the evening, Scholars shared reflections on four years in the program, the bonds they built, and the roads ahead. The night also held space to honor the memory of Tre’saun, a Scholar who would have been part of this graduating class. His presence was felt in the room. Watching the Class of 2026 grow has been one of the great joys of this work. We are honored to have been part of their journey and can’t wait to see the great heights they reach in the future in college, career, and beyond

Also, earlier in the month, BridgeUP+OUT welcomed a very special guest to Cardinal Hayes. Judaline Cassidy, founder of Tools and Tiaras and 2025 Helen Gurley Brown Foundation Genius Grant recipient, put on a hands-on workshop exposing Scholars to different areas in the trades. With 30 years in the industry and a mission built on the belief that jobs have no gender, Judaline brought that energy directly into the room. 

As the school year wraps up, the relationships built this spring are carrying real momentum into summer, where Scholars are gearing up for meaningful experiences ahead, including BridgeUP Environment, our partnership with the Student Conservation Association, kicking off soon.

At BridgeUP STEM, the program celebrated its Scholars and their accomplishments at the End of Year Showcase, alongside family, friends, and program leaders. Scholars expressed gratitude for their time in the program and cheered one another on for their successes. Many of the graduating Scholars also shared exciting updates on their college plans. Congratulations to all!

In BridgeUP Theater in the Schools, the team is in the middle of their in-school residency, with Teaching Artists hard at work and doing a wonderful job adapting to each school’s unique environment. The program has a wonderful flow going and is looking forward to presenting student work in June. Stay tuned!

In our Empowering Women vertical, Northern Stage just wrapped up Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret, a play by Talene Monahon and BOLD Associate Director, Aileen Wen McGroddy. Loosely adapted from Susanna Centlivre’s 1714 farce of the same name, Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret follows a colorful plot and cast. The show just wrapped at the end of May on the 31st in VT and audiences loved the production. Up next, this Venture project will have a vibrant run Off-Broadway at Classic Stage in NYC! We can’t wait to see what’s next for this production! 

At the Goodman Theater, Covenant, directed by BOLD Associate Director, Malkia Stampley, has been extended by popular demand through June 7th. If you are in the Chicago area, do not miss your chance to see this show. 

In our Empowering Innovation vertical, May brought exciting updates from the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and its grantees.

Subline, a Magic Grant project at Stanford, has made terrific progress this spring. Subline is a browser-based tool that surfaces a knowledge graph extracted from newsroom archives, identifying entities — people, places, laws, organizations — and mapping their relationships across time. It turns static archives into a living, queryable network designed to preserve context and make it accessible to journalists through intuitive prompts. Every node is linked to original reporting, and every path tells a story. Crucially, it is being built with journalists, for journalists. This month, Subline launched its first major MVP and presented its work at NICAR, the leading conference for computer-assisted reporting. The team is now identifying newsroom partners to extend the tool’s reach and continue testing it in real reporting environments.

At the end of April, the Brown Institute also concluded its full Magic Grant review process, receiving 120 proposals, 20 of which were bicoastal proposals. A record number! On April 30th, the Institute awarded its 15th cohort of Magic Grants to projects spanning investigative reporting, civic technology, accessible technology, public health, and tools for creative work. Among this year’s funded projects: Blind Envy, a set of tactile audio tools designed to make professional audio production more accessible for blind creators; a partnership between Columbia Journalism School and the Mailman School of Public Health to produce the first comprehensive assessment of contamination risks near America’s Cold War-era nuclear weapons sites; and VibeAnimation, a tool that will allow animators, designers, and journalists to teach AI models motion graphics styles through demonstration. Eleven grants were awarded in total, each reflecting the Brown Institute’s commitment to pairing technical innovation with impactful storytelling.

What a month! We cannot wait to share what June brings.