Marilyn Hatza Death, Obituary – On Monday, it was brought to the attention of Maryland Humanities that Marilyn Hatza, who had been serving as the organization’s Director of Grants and Community Engagement, had passed away. The staff at Maryland Humanities reacted with an intense sense of sorrow upon hearing this news. In 2014, Marilyn started her career in the nonprofit sector by joining Maryland Humanities in the capacity of Program Officer for Grants and Strategic Partnerships. She is in charge of our Grants and Regional Humanities Network initiatives now that she has taken on this post. In the beginning, Marilyn was in charge of laying the groundwork for and tending to the growth of our Regional Humanities Networks.
She accomplished this by bringing together humanities organizations from a number of fields so that they could collaborate, share resources, and collectively develop solutions to regional issues. She did this so that the organizations could work together to find solutions to regional challenges. This is made eminently evident by the fact that Marilyn was instrumental in our SHINE Program and played a vital role there. She was the first member of the team to bring up the idea of providing general operating support to organizations that are dedicated to the arts and humanities. She was offered a position on the Senior Staff and awarded a promotion to a newly-created post in April 2021,
which was the Director of Grants and Community Engagement. Additionally, she was extended an invitation to become a member of the Senior Staff. Marilyn possessed both a vision for and a comprehension of racial justice, as well as its link to grant-making and the humanities business in the state of Maryland. In addition, she was familiar with the connection between racial equity and the humanities industry in the state. She first listened to the concerns of our grantees and then advocated for the fact that our work in diversity, equity, inclusion, and access must live throughout the entirety of Maryland Humanities and not just in the grants department.
This is because she believes that these issues are intertwined and that one cannot exist without the other. This marked the beginning of Maryland Humanities’ attempts to promote racial fairness in its various programs and activities.