Rethinking Civic Science Funding to Better Support Community Engagement

Abstract

Civic science funders and grantmakers play a key role in supporting community engagement efforts. However, current funding policies are often misaligned with the realities of community engagement. Collaboration with community partners moves at the speed of trust, and trust requires time, relationship-building, and persistence. Yet, many civic science grants have short timelines, burdensome reporting requirements, and are focused on quantitative outcomes. To realize the goals of civic science, grantmakers need to shift their practices to provide more flexible and long-term funding. This means extending funding periods from one year to multiple years, creating open communication channels to streamline and reduce reporting requirements and frequency, and valuing relationship-building as an important outcome.