During Advent 2024, the capstone course for the Certificate in Civic and Global Leadership, taught by Politics Professor and OCE Director Amy Patterson, took a different form. Instead of students completing a consultancy report for a community partner, students worked with their community partner to write a grant for capacity building for their organization. (All students were Bonner/Canale students who had served at a site for several terms.) 

To be prepared to write the grant, students first learned about community organizing, community foundations, social capital, philanthropy, and grant criteria. They also learned about logic models and completed one with input from their site supervisor around their grant project. In collaboration with South Cumberland Community Fund (SCCF), they then administered the fund’s fall grants. In the past, the grants had been part of the Philanthropy Internship Program, taught by Katie Goforth. With Katie’s retirement, the fall SCCF grant round will be folded into the CIVC 400 course, which will be taught by Dr. Katy Morgan, Psychology, starting in Advent 2025.

As part of the SCCF grant process, students read applications, interviewed applicants, made final decisions, and then planned the grant award celebration, which was held at the Coalmont Elementary School cafeteria in Altamont on a dark, cold night in November. As part of the awards ceremony, students read personal essays connecting their own life experiences to the work of the plateau partner who was receiving the grant. The essays not only developed the rationale for the grant but gave insight into how the grantee’s work would have a meaningful positive impact on the community. In the course, students had learned about public narrative as a tool for social change, by reading the work of Marshall Ganz. In their presentations, the students focused on how the story of self connects to the story of us, which then connects to the story of now, or the urgent issue that must be addressed. (More information on the SCCF grants is available on the SCCF Blog).

The semester culminated with the students’ own successful grant applications to a joint Bonner/SCCF committee that included students, OCE staff, and the SCCF director and board members. As with the SCCF grants, the students had interviews with this grant committee, after having written two drafts of their grants and “pitching” their idea to the SCCF director at a class meeting in early October. In addition to the grant amount, this committee decided to award some funds to each community partner for “overhead” costs, which is a common practice in the grant world. Below is the list of students and the grants their partner organization received:

Ashton Butler, for a high quality video camera for Franklin County Prevention Coalition, so the FCPC can put informational interviews on their website.

Emma Lively, for Legos and resource books for Richard Hardy School, so that the counselor can incorporate play into emotional-social support for students. 

Stewart Miller, for reusable shopping bags for CAC, so that the organization can be more environmentally sustainable and spend fewer funds on single use plastic bags.

Clara Rominger, for tables and chairs for the CORE mentoring program at South Pittsburg Middle/High School so that students no longer sit on the floor during mentoring sessions.

Patterson, who had never taught the Capstone course before, remarked, “I really enjoyed learning alongside the students. They are a dedicated group that is thoughtful about community development and our role as civic agents. They were willing to try new assignments, engage in different ways with academic material, and laugh along the way. They reminded me why I love teaching and working in communities with students.”