Community Engagement Grants

The Community Engaged Learning and Research Initiative committee (CELRI) administers mini-grants for curricular activities that involve local community engagement. CELRI grants take two forms:

Partnership Grants

Partnership grants can be exploratory (to investigate project possibilities, to locate and plan with community partners, and to research community-engaged learning pedagogies), or they can facilitate an already-designed project. They can also be projects dedicated to reframing faculty members’ scholarly work to make it more community engaged (which may mean part of the work is identifying potential local community partners).

Preference will be given to projects that lend themselves to meaningful and sustained community partner involvement at both the planning and implementation phases and that hold the potential for building long-term partnerships.

Duration: Longer term (several weeks – a semester)

Funding: The maximum budget request for a Partnership Grant is $3,000.

CELRI grants are not intended to support faculty stipends. If a faculty stipend is necessary to achieve equity in a community engaged project, you are encouraged to apply to a Pedagogical Inquiry Grant (PIG) funded through the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Collaboration Grants

Collaboration grants are intended to support costs associated with short-term community engaged course components. Examples of community partner roles in short-term engagements include: guest speaker, panel participant, local trip liaison, etc. Associated costs may include: community partner stipends, travel expenses, workshop materials, etc.

Duration: Short-term

Funding: The maximum request for a Collaboration Grant is $1,500.

First Steps

To avoid overwhelming community partners and ensure we’re building relationships that center their needs, collaborations with CTUIR and the Washington State Penitentiary are centrally coordinated. 

Before initiating collaborations with CTUIR, faculty should coordinate with Jeanine Gordon, Special Assistant to the President for Native American Outreach.

Before initiating collaborations with the Washington State Penitentiary, faculty should coordinate with Mitch Clearfield, Director of the Whitman at the Penitentiary Program. 

How to Apply

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis but should be submitted at least one month before the relevant activity begins. Please submit to celri@whitman.edu.

Required documents

1. Application cover page (Partnership Grant and Collaboration Grant)
2. Project description
3. Budget
4. Report (submitted after completion, required for any stipend payment)