Request for Proposals (RFP) for Scholar-Practitioner Funded Program

 

Proposal Deadline: March 1, June 1, October 1, & December 1
Funding Amount: $7,500 max
Program Duration: 6-18 months

Overview

Community Engagement Alliance (CEA) invites proposals from faculty, staff, and administrators at member campuses to participate in our Scholar-Practitioner Program. This program aims to empower faculty, students, and community partners to collaboratively research and address community-identified urgencies through innovative interventions. Our goal is to foster reciprocal benefits among all participants, integrating high-impact educational practices to enhance the learning experience and community engagement.

Applicant Qualifications

• Faculty of any rank or discipline
• Professional staff
• Senior administrators

The primary investigator must be a student or employee of a CEA partner institution, and any funds awarded will be distributed to the partner institution for further management and distribution.

Program Goals

This program seeks to:

• Increase the number of projects leveraging higher education resources to address community-identified needs.
• Encourage an inquiry-based mindset towards common community challenges in the minds of higher education stakeholders and community partners.
• Empower student belief that they have the skill, knowledge, and ability to address urgencies facing their community.
• Provide students with the semi-controlled environment to sharpen skills related to problem definition and problem solving through disciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies.

Program Structure

Phase 1: Team Formation and Research

Awardees will assemble a project team that includes at least one community partner and their students. Together, they will identify a specific community issue or urgency to research.

Phase 2: Problem Definition and Intervention Design

CEAs programming will guide teams in defining the problem, justifying the need for intervention, and contextualizing their research. Awardees will present potential interventions to their project team to build consensus on actionable solutions.

Phase 3: Implementation Planning

After selecting the most viable intervention(s), project teams will develop a detailed project plan for implementation. This phase will incorporate service learning, collaborative assignments, learning experiences exposing students to viewpoint diversity, and, where applicable, capstone projects.

Phase 4: Sustainability and Assessment

CEA will provide resources for sustaining project outcomes beyond the funding period, including asset development and storytelling techniques. Awardees will also engage in assessment practices to evaluate the efficacy of their interventions on both student and community outcomes.

Peer-to-Peer Learning Community

Awardees will participate in a peer-to-peer learning community that facilitates the sharing of experiences and strategies between faculty currently conducting interventions and those in the research phase.

Project Examples

• A project team comprised of a biology professor, a director of community outreach, and local nonprofit focused on water quality redesign an undergraduate biology course to understand and address the water quality issues in an underprivileged community close to the university. The university stakeholders work with the community partner(s) to identify the community’s aspirations and design a research plan (utilizing the undergraduate students) to understand the issue. The research team presents their findings and intervention options at a community meeting. Next, the project team creates an intervention plan that includes volunteer opportunities for community members. Finally, the project team creates a plan to sustain the project work and share outcomes with broad and relevant audiences.
• A project team comprised of a sociology professor, a director of the campus writing center, and the program manager of a local historical society create a course to understand why less affluent parts of their city are underrepresented in the city’s historical discourse. The project teams design trainings for undergraduate students to capture oral histories of elderly residents in these underrepresented parts of the city with special attention to how these histories exemplify both challenges and assets in these neighborhoods. The project teams shares their findings with the community residents and partner on a creative writing project to create a more inclusive story of the city’s history.

Proposal Requirements

Applicants must submit the following materials by the proposal deadline:

1. Project Overview
   • Project Title
   • Project Start Date – must be at least seven weeks from the submission deadline
   • Project End Date – anywhere between three and eighteen months after the project start dates
   • Requested Amount – monetary figure requested to conduct the project
   • Executive Summary
2. Investigator Information
   • Full Name
   • Academic Institution
   • Professional Title
   • Email Address
   • Phone Number
   • All of the information above for any Co-Investigators
3. Fiscal Officer*
   • Full Name
   • Professional Title
   • Email Address
   • Phone Number
   • *Fiscal Officer refers to the individual who is a designated financial signatory for the campus and/or department. The Fiscal Officer will fulfill the financial reporting requirements and manage all financial aspects of the grant. The Investigator cannot also serve as the Fiscal Officer.
4. Needs Statement
   • What problem or issue is the project intended to address?
   • How was the problem or issue identified?
   • What do you believe to be true about the identified problem or issue?
5. Project Team
   • Who are the key team members (faculty, staff, students, community partners, etc.)?
   • What are the specific roles of each team member?
   • How will collaboration among the team be structured to ensure reciprocity and effectiveness?
6. Research Methods
   • What research method(s) will be used to study the identified issue?
   • Why are these methods useful in understanding the issue and designing an effective intervention (or interventions)?
   • How do these methods represent a commitment to a specific academic discipline, set of academic disciplines, or a transdisciplinary approach?
   • How will this project create opportunities for students to engage with these methodologies and develop problem-solving skills?
   • What data will be captured through the research process and how will it help inform a better understanding of the identified issue and potential interventions to help address this issue?
   • Describe the analytical technique(s) that will be used to interpret your data
7. Community Voice
   • How have you engaged the community in the design and implementation of your research project?
   • How will the project team ensuring ongoing engagement with the community partners throughout the research process?
   • How will community input shape the design and implementation of the intervention(s)?
   • How will the community perspectives be represented in the project’s evaluation and final reporting?
   • Are there community partners?
8. Example Finding & Intervention
   • Provide an example of what you could find through your research and how it would inform the intervention design and implementation.
9. Goals, Anticipated Outcomes, & Evaluation
   • Explain, in the simplest terms possible, what you hope to achieve with this project. This should include what you will achieve in terms of student learning outcomes and addressing the community need.
   • How will achieving the project’s goals represent progress toward creating more civic-minded students?
   • How will achieving the project’s goals represent progress toward addressing the community-identified problem or issue?
   • What data will be collected to assess the project’s impact on student learning outcomes (e.g., civic mindset, academic competencies, civic agency, civic knowledge, civic behavior, etc.)?
   • What data will be collected to asses the project’s impact on community need(s)?
10. Timeline of Activities
    • Chronologically detail the project plan, month-by-month, and include when the funds will be spent.
11. Project Risks, Challenges, & Design for Success
    • What are the most significant barriers to the successful implementation of your project (e.g., logistical, financial, institutional, or community-related challenges)?
    • What strategies will you use to mitigate these risks?
    • How does the project’s design account for flexibility and adaptability to overcome unexpected obstacles?
12. Dissemination Plan
    • How do you plan to share the knowledge you gained or created through this project?
    • Do you plan to publish your research results? If so, where?
    • Do you plan to present at a conference? If so, what conference?
    • How will you communicate the findings of your project to the most relevant and broad audiences?
13. Sustainability Plan 
    • How do you plan to generate the financial support, institutional support, and community engagement needed to sustain the project?
14. Sustainability Plan
    • How do you plan to generate the financial support, institutional support, and community engagement needed to sustain the project?
    • How does the design of this project encourage reciprocity for students, faculty, community partners, and other stakeholders?
15. Budget Request and Reporting Form
    • Complete the Budget Request & Reporting Form.
    • All requests must adhere to the Grant Terms and Conditions regarding allowable and non-allowable expenses.

Optional Information

1. Letters of Support - Letters of Support can be submitted from a senior administrator, community partner, or any relevant stakeholders.
2. References - If you use quotations, refer to prior research, or make mention of your previous work, please provide a reference list in a standard format (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.

Selection Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Relevance and significance of the identified community issue
• Innovation and feasibility of addressing community issue
• Clarity of the project plan and defined roles within the team
• Commitment to high-impact educational practices
• Potential for sustained community engagement beyond the funding period

Submission Process

Please submit your completed proposal online. Late or incomplete submissions will not be considered.

For questions regarding this RFP, please contact grants@engagedalliance.org.

Conclusion

Through this program, CEA seeks to catalyze innovative, community-driven research that fosters active citizenship and engagement in democratic processes. We look forward to your proposals and to collaborating on impactful projects that address vital community needs.