AAUW: Community Action Grants - Project Support

The AAUW Community Action Grants support projects that promote education and equity for women and girls in grades K-12, particularly in STEM fields. Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations and AAUW branches. The grants aim to enhance community participation and address equity challenges through innovative solutions. With an award ceiling of $10,000, the program prioritizes projects that serve underserved communities, demonstrating a commitment to learning and evaluation to ensure impactful outcomes.

Community Action Grants fund projects that promote education and equity for women and girls in grades K-12 and that are implemented by nonprofit organizations, universities or AAUW branches and state organizations. AAUW holds an especially strong interest in projects with a STEM focus and has funded more than 63 STEM projects over the last 4 years, in addition to providing funding support for hundreds of communities across the United States since 1972.
Selection Criteria
Project alignment with promoting equity for women and girls in grades K-12, preferably with an emphasis in STEM fields.
Strength of project rationale; applicants must provide specific context to show how their project builds on existing work, addresses a need or tackles a topic or problem related to equity for women and girls in a new way.
Clarity of anticipated results, which are convincingly connected to specific proposed activities and outputs and that are logically connected to the project’s goals.
Project proposals must reflect how community/stakeholder participation is considered in the project’s design.
Demonstrated organizational capacity and capability to achieve its objectives.
Reflect a commitment to learning and evaluation by:incorporating monitoring/evaluation methods that enable assessment of project outcomes; anddescribing how results and/or learnings from project implementation will be shared with stakeholders and/or the communities which the project intends to serve.
Feasibility of the programmatic work or project:the programmatic work or project has realistic time frames;the project budget is adequate, and expenses are reasonable and necessary;there is adequate support from collaborative organizations and community partners, as appropriate.
Potential for and/or commitment of additional funds and involvement from community organizations, businesses and funders (preferred).

Eligibility

Applicants must be incorporated as a nonprofit with a federally designated-tax exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code. AAUW branches and state organizations with 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status are also eligible and encouraged to apply.
Projects must serve communities in the United States or its territories.

Ineligibility

The following are not eligible for consideration:Members of the AAUW Board of Directors.
Employees of AAUW, including paid or unpaid, part-time or temporary employees, consultants, interns and contract employees.
Review Panelists.
Immediate families (i.e., spouses and dependent children) of individuals described in the points above.
Previous AAUW Community Action Grant recipients must wait 3 years before reapplying.Please note grant funds cannot be used to:Influence legislation