CIVIC SPRING PROJECT
Supporting organizations who can meaningfully partner, mentor and involve young people over the summer in responding to local community needs in one of two areas: responding to COVID-19 and/or building civic capacities for the 2020 election cycle with grants of up to $100,000
GOALS
Support
Support organizations that can meaningfully partner with young people
Participation
Building communities of practices with strong youth participation
Develop
Develop young people’s civic dispositions, skills and knowledge
learning
Use summer to catalyze effective civic learning
Measure
Measure program impact, share learnings around effective implementation
connect
Provide young people the ability to connect more widely
about us
Rajiv Vinnakota, president of the WW National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, NJ, partnered with Bellwether Education Partners to lead a project examining civic education in the United States. Over the course of 2019, he interviewed more than 100 practitioners, researchers, policymakers, funders and public intellectuals in the broader civic learning and preparation space which is documented in the white paper, From Civic Education to a Civic Learning Ecosystem. The work resulted in significant momentum to engage in cross-partisan field building activities and led to the identification of four major work areas. A March convening to develop the goals and next steps was delayed until the fall. In this window of time, Raj facilitated the creation of a highly skilled and diverse Task Force and set the groundwork for the Civic Spring Project. A team from WW will be administrating the work in conjunction with a tremendous group of volunteers.
This spring, a task force of 40 people from the civic space came together to determine how to help young people use civic activities as a catalyst for responding to COVID-19 in their communities this summer.
The Civic Spring Project issued a call for proposals for youth civic engagement initiatives designed to be civic-minded, youth-oriented, nonpartisan, nimble, measurement-minded, and generative.
Out of 1,100 eligibility inquiries and 144 applications, 6 grantees were selected.
TASK FORCE MEMBERS
Sanda Balaban (YVote)
Ashley Berner (Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy)
David Bobb (Bill of Rights Institute)
Brian Brady (Mikva Challenge)
Andrew Brennen (National Geographic Education Fellow)
Mary Jo Callan (University of Michigan – Edward Ginsberg Center)
Elise Corbett (Entercom)
Joe Daly (Bloomberg Philanthropies)
Mario Fedelin (Changeist)
Mary Ellen Giess (Interfaith Youth Core)
Abraham Goldberg (James Madison Center for Civic Engagement)
Jeannemarie Halleck (Waynflete)
Sarah Harris (Entercom)
Daniel Hart (Rutgers University – Camden)
Shawn Healy (McCormick Foundation)
Audrey Hutchinson (National League of Cities)
Merrit Jones (Student Voice)
Deb Jospin (Cities of Service)
Rebecca Kelley (National 4-H Council)
Matt Leighninger (Public Agenda)
Peter Levine (Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life)
Phebe Meyer (Clapham Group)
Jose Oromi (Horizons National)
Nikola Pavelic (Cities of Service)
Eileen Resnick (Sumners Foundation)
Mark Rodgers (Clapham Group)
Rose Rodriguez (Cities of Service)
Dara Rose (Horizons National)
Anna Saavedra (University of Southern California, Dornsife – Center for Economic and Social Research)
Stefanie Sanford (College Board)
Andrew Seligsohn (Campus Compact)
Bela Shah Spooner (National League of Cities)
Robert Sherman (Robert Sherman Consulting)
Julie Silverbrook (iCivics)
Lucian Spataro (Arizona State University)
Kurt Dean Squire (UCI Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences)
Leslie Gabay Swanston (National Summer Learning Association)
Tamara Tweel (Teagle Foundation)
Jane Williams (Horizons National)
Adam Zalisk (Amplify)
with great thanks to our funders and partners
and anonymous donors
Contact US
Have any questions? Want to us to keep you updated? Please reach out to us via email to civiceducation@woodrow.org or use the contact form below. We look forward to hearing from you!