Small Grants

Beginning in 1998, the Civic Education Consortium has received support annually from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to distribute grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 to support innovative, collaborative civic education projects that prepare North Carolina’s youth for active, responsible citizenship. The program has awarded over $537,000 to 89 outstanding projects in 81 of North Carolina’s counties.

The Consortium is especially interested in funding programs that:

• Enable teachers/adult leaders to apply classroom civics lessons in the community
• Involve youth directly in government programs, processes, and/or services
• Incorporate service-learning into the curriculum, teaching young people about community involvement and/or public policy issues
• Help teachers/adult leaders learn and implement best practices in civic education Best practices include: service-learning, current events discussions, and simulations
• Encourage young people to value democracy and exercise both rights and responsibilities of citizenship
• Provide citizenship development opportunities for lower-income youth
• Involve participants who are diverse in background, age, achievement level, income, race, ethnicity, or religion