Release of Request for Proposals: February 15, 2019

Letter of Inquiry (LOI) Due: March 15, 2019

LOI Selection Notification by: March 22, 2019

Full Grant Proposals Due: April 19, 2019

Internal Review by Unite:Ed Steering Committee: April 22 – May 17, 2019

Award Notifications by: May 24, 2019

Awardee Partnerships Complete Planning Process: May 27 – June 29, 2019

Research Projects Commence: June 30, 2019

Interim Reporting Due: October 1, 2019

Final Reporting Due: September 1, 2020

PURPOSE

Unite:Ed is an alliance between the University of Washington College of Education and community and education partners. In service of communities experiencing structural inequity in education, we join together to exchange knowledge and co-design justice centered strategies that improve educational systems and create better futures for children and youth.

Our Unite:Ed alliance principles are:

  1. Center relationships, learning, and community-defined priorities and wellbeing to transform systems that perpetuate racial and other inequities faced by communities of color.
  2. Enact solidarities to reshape power hierarchies through shared governance and decision-making.
  3. Build from and with youth, community, school/practitioner, community-based organization, and Tribal nations’ strengths and expertise to support justice-centered educational change-making.
  4. Foster joint learning – of COE members, practitioners, community members – to enact equitable educational partnerships that prioritize community-defined problems and opportunities of practice.
  5. Co-design flexible infrastructures and leverage human capacity across partners to sustain community-centered educational justice work.

As a key component of the research consortium planning grant awarded to the University of Washington College of Education by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we were awarded one-time grant funding to seed research + practice seed projects. Our goal is to fund research partnerships between community-based organizations (including grassroots groups, non-profit organizations, or Tribes) who are meeting the needs of underserved communities impacted by structural and racial inequality in partnership with UW College of Education faculty. These partnerships may include Washington state school districts, but must be led by community-based organizations.

SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY-DRIVEN RESEARCH + PRACTICE PARTNERSHIP PROJECTS

In response to this open application process - which includes an initial Letter of Inquiry (LOI), and if selected, a full Request for Proposals (RFP) -  we anticipate issuing 6-10 grants for a total of $280,000 to support community-driven research + practice partnerships. In order to support the range of proposals we anticipate, we are offering two types of grant support:

  1. Funding for emerging partnerships with a total award of $20,000, of which $15,000 will be awarded directly to the lead community organization along and $5,000 in supplemental funding held for the UW College of Education faculty partner’s time.
    1. Emerging partnerships are groups that may still be in the process of forming their partnership, may need grant support for relationship building and community engagement activities in order to identify their community’s needs and determine how research could inform solutions.
  1. Funding for established partnerships with a total award of $40,000, of which $30,000 will be awarded directly to the lead community organization and $10,000 in supplemental funding held for the UW College of Education faculty partner’s time.
    1. Established partnerships are groups that already have a working partnership, can identify potential research questions and methods in their grant application, and may already be engaged in a research together but want to extend the work in a new direction.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

  • The lead partnership organization must be a community-based organization (grassroots groups with fiscal sponsorship, non-profit, or Tribe) focused on education and doing its work primarily within the state of Washington.
  • The proposed research partnership must include a University of Washington College of Education faculty member (e.g., senior lecturers, research faculty, tenure-ladder faculty) who has the subject-matter expertise and capacity to partner in this research during grant period.
  • The research partnership must be willing to share its research findings, lessons learned, and be open to presenting in different educational settings (conferences, lectures, panels, etc.) to a variety of audiences with special attention paid to sharing directly with the community where the research was conducted. We encourage research partnerships to mutually agree on their terms for sharing of data.
  • If you are engaging in research activities with human subjects, your partnership will need to seek Institutional Review Board (IRB) review. The UW COE faculty partner will need to provide leadership in gaining IRB approval or exemption prior to the start of the research project. This will be required after the grant has been awarded to the partnership; all members of the partnership will be required to complete Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training.

WE GIVE PRIORITY TO PROJECTS THAT

  • We strongly encourage research partnerships that are led by community-based organizations (including grassroots groups, non-profit organizations, or Tribes) who are meeting the needs of underserved communities impacted by structural and racial inequality and UW College of Education faculty. These partnerships may include Washington state school districts, but must be led by community-based organizations.
  • Strive to embody the Unite:Ed alliance’s principles by explicitly focusing on racial equity in education and upholding the principles in their proposal, in the process of doing their work together, and within the research itself. This includes but is not limited to: understanding and prioritizing the need for deep relationship building, community listening sessions, and shared decision-making within the research partnership.
  • Demonstrate that they are community-driven in the development of their research question, process of conducting research, and plan to share and disseminate the research findings.
  • While we will support indirect costs up to 15% of the total budget, we also encourage the partnerships to determine what direct costs are needed to support the partners’ internal capacity and research infrastructure and to build those costs into the budget.

HOW TO APPLY

In order to determine that your proposed research partnership project is a good fit for this opportunity, we are using a two-part grant application process:

  1. Letter of Inquiry - due by March 15, 2019 - https://tinyurl.com/UniteEdLOI2019
  2. If selected, complete a full Grant Application by April 19, 2019.

Please submit your completed Letter of Inquiry (LOI) using the link above by Friday, March 15, 2019 by 5 pm PST.

After an internal review, we will select from the pool of applicants to submit a full grant application (RFP) and notify your lead partnership organization by March 22. If invited to continue the application process, your completed grant application along with required attachments will need to be electronically by the RFP deadline of Friday, April 19, 2019 by 5 pm PST to darviso@uw.edu

If you need technical assistance in completing your grant application or have questions, please contact Unite:Ed Director Dana Arviso at darviso@uw.edu to schedule a phone, webinar, or in-person appointment. Dana can also assist you in finding a potential UW College of Education faculty match by identifying and connecting you with faculty who have subject-matter expertise in your potential area of research as you develop your grant proposal.

LETTER OF INQUIRY QUESTIONS

  1. Contact Information (Requested in LOI)
    1. Partnership Name
    2. Lead Partner Organization
    3. Type of Organization (School District, CBO, Tribe)
    4. Additional Community Partners
    5. Primary & Secondary Contacts and Email Addresses
    6. Mailing Address & Phone Number
    7. Potential UW College of Education Faculty Partner (If your partnership would like to be matched with a faculty member by a Unite:Ed staff member, please indicate “TBD”.)
  2. Background Information (Requested in LOI; maximum of 250 words per question)
    1. Brief History of Lead Organization
    2. Mission Statement of the Lead Organization
    3. Describe the goals the (potential) partnership will work towards.
    4. Describe the perceived community need(s) the partnership is interested in exploring and better understanding through research.
    5. Why is this organization best positioned to do this work within the community?
    6. Demographics survey of board, staff, and volunteers.
      1. How many people in the lead organization are involved in strategic decision-making, provide oversight and guidance, and are responsible for the carrying out organization’s mission?
      2. Please describe the racial and ethnic diversity of your organization (write the number of people in the given organizational positions who identify according to these identity markers).
      3. Please describe the gender diversity of your organization (write the number of people in the given organizational positions who identify according to these identity markers).
      4. Please describe the linguistic diversity of your organization (write the number of people in the given organizational positions who identify according to these identity markers).
      5. Please describe the age diversity of your organization (write the number of people in the given organizational positions who identify according to these identity markers).
      6. Please describe other important markers of diversity of your organization (write the number of people in the given organizational positions who identify according to these identity markers).
    7. Demographics of communities served.
      1. Please describe the racial and ethnic diversity of your constituency (move the slider to represent, to the best of your knowledge, the fraction of your constituency identifies according to these identity markers).
      2. Please describe the gender diversity of your constituency (move the slider to represent, to the best of your knowledge, the fraction of your constituency identifies according to these identity markers).
      3. Please describe the linguistic diversity of your constituency (move the slider to represent, to the best of your knowledge, the fraction of your constituency identifies according to these identity markers).
      4. Please describe the age diversity of your constituency (move the slider to represent, to the best of your knowledge, the fraction of your constituency identifies according to these identity markers).
      5. Please describe the other important markers of diversity of your constituency (move the slider to represent, to the best of your knowledge, the fraction of your constituency identifies according to these identity markers).
      6. What else would you like us to know about the communities your project intends to serve? (100 words or less)