Funds are currently available on a competitive basis for innovative community-based research (CBR) courses and projects. Awards will be between $2,500 — $7,500 per year for one to three years. These grants will be awarded to higher education institutions doing innovative CBR work that can serve as models for best practices.

Examples of innovative work could include, but are not limited to:

• Connecting community-based research to the policy and information needs of nonprofit organizations and citizens;
• Linking CBR to ongoing direct service partnerships, especially in programs that serve disadvantaged youth (e.g., evaluating the effectiveness of an after-school tutoring program involving students in an America Reads Program);
• Developing campus partnerships with youth civic engagement groups that involve youth as researchers supported by college students;
• Establishing summer CBR internships that enable students to provide full-time CBR assistance to a community partner;
• Creating stipended CBR internships during the school year that leverage Federal Work-Study and part-time AmeriCorps student funding;
• Organizing multi-site CBR projects that link campus and community partners in different geographical locations (e.g., a study of college prep programs for low-income youth in three rural communities).

CRITERIA

All projects must:

• Involve collaboration between the university and one or more community organizations in the project design and plan for use of the research;
• Clearly state how the project reflects an innovative approach to CBR;
• Result in replication guidelines to facilitate adoption of successful models,
• Have a realistic workflow, timeframe, and budget; and
• Include a 50% match requirement (e.g., a $5,000 award would require a $2,500 match from the institution).

PROPOSAL STRUCTURE:

Please send a project outline of no more than 5 pages including:

1. A brief overview of the community-based research program at your institution, including history, infrastructure, and current initiatives/programs.
2. A description of the community-based research project, including descriptions of participating community partners, covering both process and outcomes, and addressing the criteria above, for each year of requested funding (up to three years).
3. A short description of how the project represents innovation in the field of community-based research.
4. A short description of tools, trainings, and other resources the project is anticipated to generate and share with other CBR centers.
5. The names and contact information for faculty who will be involved in the project.
6. The names and contact information for community representatives who will help guide this initiative and any other non-profit partners who will play active roles.
7. An explanation of how grant funds will support this project.
8. A budget that includes grant and matching funds for each year of funding requested.

All grant recipients must agree to abide by the regulations of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which can be found at http://www.learnandserve.gov/pdf/highered_prov_06.pdf.

Proposals must be submitted by February 1, 2007. If you are uncertain that your project fits the criteria, we encourage you to send a letter or e-mail outlining your project for feedback. Please submit letters of inquiry and final proposals to ld2@princeton.edu.

For more information on the National Community-Based Research Networking Initiative, see the project web page. For all program-related inquiries, please write to Lauren Davis at ld2@princeton.edu.

ISSUES TO CONSIDER WHEN PREPARING YOUR PROPOSAL

When considering whether your program fits the criteria for the innovation subgrant, please consider these important issues. Many are related to the Initiative’s definition of CBR, as follows:

Community-based research seeks to be linked to the community where data are collected and analyzed with the purpose of taking action or affecting social change. Elements of community-based research include community participation and an ongoing reciprocal relationship between the researcher and the community. The process is directed by the community to bring about greater equality and participation in decision-making.

For students and faculty, abstract theories can come alive through practical applications. Similarly, researchers who have questions about community-based programs related to their academic interests can obtain first-hand information and insights from grassroots groups. Academics can therefore become agents of social change by reaching out to under-served communities. In the community-based model, academic and community members work together to identify the research issue, develop the design, collect the data, write up the results, and work with policy makers and practitioners in designing programs and policies. Research is also action-oriented, in the sense that findings can be adapted for activists, non-profits and government agencies.

• Students must be involved and they must be doing research.

Community-based research as the Initiative defines it requires the participation of three parties: students, faculty, and community partners. A proposed research project that includes work only between faculty and community partners is incomplete. Undergraduate students must be involved in the project, and while they may serve as mentors or perform hands-on service, their role must also include research for your proposal to be considered.

• The research funded by the grant must be community-driven.

An important principle of CBR is the community’s role in the research process. The process should be directed by the community, not the university, to bring about greater equality and participation in decision-making. Rather than proposing the implementation of a program to a community organization, the university partner should approach the community organization as a source of knowledge and awareness of community needs.

• Grant proposals should include not only an institutional contact, but also a community partner operating separately from the university.

Effective community-based research takes place between a university partner and an established community organization that has the resources, staff, and knowledge to develop research questions, work with the university, and use the research to build organization capacity.

• The specific objective of the grant is to fund innovation and replication.

Primary goals of the National CBR Networking Initiative are to spread the practice of CBR, provide tools and resources to ensure quality and collaboration, and to encourage and document innovative practices.

To that end, the objective of the grant is not simply to sustain existing research. It is to fund CBR that diversifies the pool of existing resources and projects such that the reach of CBR is expanded. Thus, ideal projects will be original. They will also be adaptable by other campuses, and funding will be used to in part to fine-tune projects and develop manuals and handbooks to make them replicable and share best practices with other institutions.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Is funding available only to universities?

Funding is available to all institutions of higher learning in the United States and Puerto Rico. This includes universities, colleges, and community colleges. Proposals must come from the institution—not the community partner with whom they are working.

• I’m from university outside of the United States. Am I eligible for the grant?

Because the Innovation Subgrant is awarded with federal funds, only institutions in the United States and Puerto Rico are eligible for subgrants. The National CBR Networking Initiative does offer other resources that are helpful to CBR practitioners all over the world, including a website (www.cbrnet.org) that includes publication and presentation opportunities and helpful materials for CBR practitioners, and a listserv for which you can register through the CBRNet website.

• My university is doing work with a community organization in a different region of the U.S. or world. Are we eligible for a subgrant?

No. Learn & Serve America’s Higher Education Provision stipulate that grant funds may not be used for projects where primary beneficiaries of an activity are outside the unite states. They are meant to connect institutions of higher education to neighboring/local communities to address local community issues. The Networking Initiative does offer other resources, though, including a website (www.cbrnet.org) that includes publication and presentation opportunities and helpful materials for CBR practitioners, and a listserv for which you can register through the CBRNet website.

• What is the grant funding cycle?

The official grant period runs from September 1, 2006, to August 31, 2009. Funds will be awarded for one-, two-, or three-year projects, in the amount of $2,500 to $7,500 each year. The funding cycle indicated on the proposed budget should be 9/1/06-8/31/07, 9/1/06-8/31/08, or 9/1/06-8/31/09.

• Can our institutional match include in-kind donations?

Yes, provided that they are in line with Learn & Serve America’s grant provisions, stated as follows:

"Contributions, including cash and third party in-kind, will be accepted as part of the Grantee's matching share for program operating costs when such contributions meet all of the following criteria:

i. They are verifiable from Grantee records;

ii. They are not included as contributions for any other federally-assisted Program;

iii. They are necessary and reasonable for the proper and efficient accomplishment of Program objectives; and

iv. They are allowable under applicable cost principles."

• Can our institutional match include overhead/indirect costs?

Learn & Serve America’s grant stipulations cap overhead costs at 5%. Should you receive the grant, many institutions will waive the difference between this and your university’s standard indirect cost rate.

• Can our institutional match include other grants that we have received?

Yes, as long as they were not awarded by Learn & Serve America or any other federally-assisted program

• Can our budget include teaching stipends?

Your budget can include teaching stipends and percentages of staff and faculty salary. However, we recommend that your budget also include expenses necessary for innovative and replicable projects, including transportation, supplies, production costs, and the creation of manuals and other materials to aid in replication.

We've just created the PolicyOptionsWiki to support the collaborative writing, editing, and updating of PolicyOption Issue Briefs.

In this first phase of the PolicyOptions.org Initiative, we are concentrating our energies on working with faculty and students on campuses to incorporate issue briefs as a form of public policy community-based research in academic courses and internships. The PolicyOptions Wiki will serve as the platform for collaborative research on issue briefs.

We are using the MediaWiki open source software that powers Wikipedia and many other similar websites. It has many features that will be helpful to our efforts, including the pages for readers and authors to discuss individual pages, be notified via email of changes to pages, and the use of templates which will help us maintain a common format for the issue briefs.

This effort is part of the recently funded Learn & Serve America grant which was awarded to Princeton University's Community-Based Learning Initiative in a partnership with the Bonner Foundation.

If you are interested in learning more, please visit the wiki site at www.policyoptionswiki.org or contact me directly at rhackett@bonner.org.

TCNJ, in partnership with the Bonner Foundation, has been awarded a $12,000 New Voices grant for the start-up of the Trenton bureau of PolicyOptions.org. The Trenton Community Information Bureau will be a project of the Trenton Center for Campus Community Partnerships (involving four area higher education institutions: Rider University, TCNJ, Princeton University, and Mercer County Community College).

This project is focused on providing local policy and program information to Trenton, New Jersey area residents and community leaders, including directors of non-project and community-based organizations, elected officials, and faculty and students from area campuses.

The primary form this project will take will be a website: Trenton.PolicyOptions.org that will contain information on Trenton area and New Jersey policy news, research, and non-profit organization resources. The website will be supplemented by a weekly email newsletter of current news and resources, funding, opportunities, workshops, etc.

Information from the website will be used to support issue forums, study circles, and leadership training. Our initial issue areas will be on education, youth development, affordable housing, violence, community and economic development, and hunger.

This project will provide valuable information needed by local Trenton area community leaders to enable them to make informed program design and policy recommendations on issues that affect the communities in which they live and work.

New Voices is a pioneering program to seed innovative community news ventures in the United States. Through 2006, New Voices is helping to fund the start-up of 20 micro-local news projects with $12,000 grants; support them with an educational Web site, and help foster their sustainability through $5,000 second-year matching grants. New Voices is administered by J-Lab at the University of Maryland and supported by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

"The grantees were selected from a diverse pool of 185 applicants. The award winners not only signaled a deep hunger for better hyperlocal coverage, they also exhibited an appetite for using cutting-edge technologies including wikis, datacasting and Skype Interntet telephony to cover their subject." - Jan Schaffer, New Voices director

For more information on the Trenton-based PolicyOptionsorg, please contact Robert Hackett, Vice President of the Bonner Foundation, at (609) 924-6663 or Patrick Donohue, Director of Community-Engaged Learning at TCNJ's Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement (609) 771-2362.

In our conference calls this week, the 25 participants (representing 21 campuses and the Bonner Foundation) expressed genuine enthusiasm for the aspirations of this initiative. We shared a variety of ideas, challenges and questions about the PolicyOptions.org strategy that now will shape how we move forward. Below are few highlights:

Ideas:

• Using the PolicyOptions IssueBrief template when assigning public policy analysis research papers as part of academic courses, academic internships, or service-based scholarship programs (i.e., Bonner Scholars/Leaders);
• Identifying thematic public policy research projects (e.g., public health, environment, achievement gap, etc.) that can be done collaboratively in multiple local sites
• Presenting this public policy CBR model to disciplinary associations (e.g., public policy, history, social work, etc.) as an approach for undergraduate research and faculty-student research;

Challenges

• Ensuring that the PolicyOptions Issue Briefs are comprehensive and objective or balanced presentations by developing a community of activists and academics who will form the "peer review" function similar to an academic journal;
• Finding ways to connect researchers working on this initiative with others researching the same or similar issues;
• Reaching out to new faculty in a wide ranch of disciplines who could incorporate the PolicyOptions Issue Brief research assignments into their courses;

Questions

• As we seek to raise grant funds to launch this initiative with participating campuses, what budget items will be most useful (e.g., faculty development, student research internships, travel to meetings on this topic, etc.)?
• How can we reconcile a standardized PolicyOptions Issue Brief template with the wide ranch of policy analysis requests that are likely to be requested by community partners?
• How do we ensure quality when working with undergraduate students? What role might the faculty member be expected to play in editing final student research before being published on the PolicyOptions.org website?

In addition to the above, there are two other challenges I am faced with as the lead organizer for this initiative:

• Working with our programmer to move the real PolicyOptions.org website (as opposed to this organizer's blog) to version 1.0 status by early in the new year (see the beta version at trenton.policyoptions.org);
• Finding resources and strategies to pilot a network of campus community information bureaus that engage in both the policy analysis (Issue Briefs) and news and resource research for local and state PolicyOptions.org websites and email news digests.

This week we hosted two conference calls that kicked off the recruitment of faculty and campus staff interested in participating in the PolicyOptions.org initiative. I was really pleased with the enthusiasm everyone had for the overall idea and their concrete strategies for moving forward on their own campuses, as well as suggestions for ways we can support their efforts in the coming months.

The main focus of our discussion was on the PolicyOption Issue Brief template and research methodology, and how faculty are or will be incorporating this research approach into an academic course or internship.

As one participant wrote prior to the call:

"I'm intrigued. I've been thinking of having my students write policy briefs, not just policy analysis papers. Schools and programs of social work ought to be very interested in your plans, as we all have policy courses with policy analysis assignments. Next term, I'll have 2 sections with a total of 30 seniors who are in field placements and I'm looking to involve them in more practice policy analysis, research and advocacy activities."

Out of this call we have created a wiki (policyoptions.pbwiki.com) to facilitate sharing of resources and strategies for working with students to research PolicyOption Issue Briefs. In addition, we will experiment with discussion boards (http://policyoptions.proboards91.com/index.cgi) to encourage discussion on specific issue research as it gets underway.

The following people from around the country were involved in the first organizing conference call which took place Monday, October 16, 2006:

1. Lisa Whitaker, Associate Director of the Center for Community Development & Social Justice, Lynchburg College
2. Stephanie Shirley Post, Stephanie Shirley Post, Executive Director, Center for Civic Engagement, Rice University
3. John Schorr, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Social Research, Stetson University
4. Robin Fife, Director, Center for Civic Engagement, Tusculum College
5. Michael Dover, Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Michigan
6. Amy Howard, Acting Director, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, University of Richmond
7. Rick Ellis, Assistant Professor of Human Services and Director of the Center for Civic Enagement, Washburn University
8. Sandra Hayslette, Service Network Coordinator, Washington and Lee University
9. Ariane Hoy, Senior Program Officer, Bonner Foundation
10. Bobby Hackett, Vice President, Bonner Foundation

The second conference call took place Wednesday, October 18 with the following participants:

1. Serena Seifer, Campus-Community Parternships for Health
2. Judy Owens-Manley, Hamilton College
3. Diane Elliott, Lafayette College
4. Paul Schwadewald, Macalester College
5. Beth Blissman, Oberlin College
6. Trisha Thorme, Princeton University
7. Patricia Longo, St. Mary’s College of CA
8. Bill Ball, The College of New Jersey
9. Nancy Andes, University of Alaska — Anchorage
10. Diane Hersberg, University of Alaska — Anchorage
11. Frank Von Hipple, University of Alaska — Anchorage
12. Mike Bishop, University of California — Berkeley
13. Keith Kelley, Whitworth College
14. Bobby Hackett, Bonner Foundation
15. Christi Owen, Bonner Foundation
16. Erin McGrath, Bonner Foundation

If you are interested in learning more about this project, read over this website and then give me a call (609-924-6663) or send me an email (rhackett@bonner.org).