community civic engagement program
Help Build Stronger and Healthier Communities
Community Health Centers are located in the most underserved and underrepresented communities across the nation, serving as deeply trusted messengers to up to 52 million individuals nationwide. At Vot-ER, we understand that health centers often need financial resources, additional capacity, and expertise to incorporate nonpartisan civic engagement activities for eligible voters into their operations.
The Community Civic Engagement Program (CCEP) is Vot-ER’s flagship grant program that expands nonpartisan civic engagement through voter registration and turnout initiatives in community health centers.
What CCEP Grants Offer:
Vot-ER’s CCEP program provides grants ranging from $3,000 to $10,500 to Community Health Centers (CHCs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) to integrate civic engagement into their existing healthcare operations. Grantees also receive:
Together, we promote civic engagement using trusted messengers in healthcare, ultimately building stronger and healthier communities
Application Deadline: February 27, 2026
2026 CCEP Grant Options:
Electronic Health Record Integration Grant
$3,000
Funds health centers’ abilities to incorporate customized voter registration and election turnout prompts into their EHR homepage banner and after visit summaries.
Texting Program Grant
$3,000 – $5,500
Funds health centers in using their patient texting tool to send a series of at least six customized voting reminder texts to patients.
Combined EHR + Texting Integration Grant
$6,000 – $8,500
Funds the combination of both Grant Options 1 and 2. Reach your patients through both text and Electronic Health Records notifications.
Full Grant: EHR + Texting + Onsite Activations
$10,500
Funds all other grant options, plus onsite voter registration drives, potential pharmacy integrations and becoming a ballot drop box/polling location.
Who Should Apply:
If you’re not quite sure whether your health center meets these criteria, please reach out to us at ccep@vot-er.org, and we can review your eligibility together.
Should your institution fall outside these requirements, Vot-ER is eager to identify alternative partnership opportunities that align with your goals. Reach out to partnerships@vot-er.org
Our Grant Supports:
CCEP 2026 Key Dates:
Grant Application Informational Webinar
Thursday, February 12, 2026
@1pm ET
CCEP Grant Info Session:
Turn Your Health Center into a Civic Hub
Join us for an optional informational webinar on Vot-ER’s Community Civic Engagement Program (CCEP). During this webinar, we will share more information about the program and answer any questions you might have. Attendees will also hear from past CCEP participants.
Frequently Asked Questions
Eligibility and How to Be A Competitive Applicant:
The Community Civic Engagement Program (CCEP) is Vot-ER’s flagship grant-making program available for Community Health Centers (CHCs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that seek to expand nonpartisan civic engagement, including voter registration and voter turnout, within community health centers, by providing up to $10,500 to incorporate these nonpartisan activities into their day-to-day health center operations.
Through CCEP, grantees also receive nonpartisan materials, including Spanish-language materials, training, and hands-on support from Vot-ER staff. All Vot-ER materials and activities comply with the election restrictions for section 501(c)(3) charities, including health centers. By using our Vot-ER tools and materials, grantees can register eligible staff, patients, and community members to vote.
CCEP applicants can choose from four different options for their scope of work:
Grant Option 1: Electronic Health Record Integration for voter registration & voter turnout
- Funds: $3,000
- This grant will fund health centers’ ability to incorporate customized voter registration and election turnout prompts into their EHR homepage banner and/or After Visit Summary, including:
- A voter registration deadline reminder for the November General Election
- A “go cast your ballot” reminder ahead of Election Day, November 3rd, 2026
Grant Option 2: Texting Program for voter registration & voter turnout
- Funds: $3,000 – $5,500, depending on patient population size.
- This grant will fund health centers to use their own patient texting tool to send a series of at least six customized voting reminder texts to patients, including:
- One text message ahead of your state’s voter registration deadline for your primary election
- One text message reminding patients to vote in their primary election
- Two text messages ahead of the November general election’s voter registration deadline
- One text message on Vote Early Day on October 27th, 2026
- One text message on Election Day on November 3rd, 2026
Grant Option 3: Combined EHR Integration + Texting Program for voter registration & voter turnout
- Funds: $6,000 – $8,500, depending on patient population size
- This grant funds the combination of both Grant Options 1 and 2
Grant Option 4: Full Programming Grant: EHR Integration + Texting Program + Onsite Activations
- Funds: $10,500
- The Full Programming Grant includes all commitments from Grant Option 3, plus:
- Conduct nonpartisan voter registration drives onsite during key moments such as National Voter Registration Day, National Health Center Week, and other events
- When possible, build nonpartisan voter registration prompts into clinic pharmacy operations
- Explore your health center becoming a ballot drop box/polling location in 2026 or future elections
In addition to the Grant Option you select, all CCEP grantees are required to implement the following in their health centers:
- Use Vot-ER’s CHC/FQHC-specific voter engagement links to conduct nonpartisan civic engagement activities
- Attend Vot-ER’s monthly CCEP one-hour learning community calls
- Send all FQHC/CHC staff nonpartisan voter registration reminder emails ahead of both the 2026 primary and general elections.
- Distribute Vot-ER badges to relevant staff (front desk, clinical, administrative, and community engagement staff, etc.) and put up voter engagement facility materials
Community Health Centers (CHCs), as defined by the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), are medical clinics located in an underserved area that provide low-cost care. These types of facilities are open to everyone, regardless of insurance status.
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), as defined by HealthCare.gov, are federally funded nonprofit health centers or clinics that serve medically underserved areas and populations. Federally qualified health centers provide primary care services regardless of your ability to pay. Services are provided on a sliding scale fee based on your ability to pay.
If you’re not quite sure whether your health center meets these criteria, please reach out to us at ccep@vot-er.org, and we can review your eligibility together.
Should your institution fall outside these requirements, Vot-ER is eager to identify alternative partnership opportunities that align with your goals. Reach out to partnerships@vot-er.org
Yes. Unfortunately, not all health centers that apply will be selected to receive funding. However, all health centers can still receive free customized nonpartisan civic engagement materials from Vot-ER and there are many other ways to engage with our work. Email partnerships@vot-er.org for more information.
There are several elements that make your application competitive. This includes:
- Health centers with a large patient population are considered for a higher amount of grant funding.
- Your CHC commits to sending your patient community nonpartisan voting-related reminders via text messaging
- Your CHC commits to incorporating a nonpartisan voter registration question in your Electronic Health Record system
- Your CHC has organizational commitment from your health center’s leadership to engage in this work. This is a short grant cycle of only 8 months, and the bulk of the time should be spent engaging patients in nonpartisan voting actions rather than seeking permission to conduct this work internally
- Your CHC holds deep enthusiasm for building out the connections between voting and health amongst your patient communities
- Your CHC has done work in this space before with Vot-ER or independently. Please make sure to tell us about how you’d use these CCEP funds to build upon and grow previous initiatives
Yes! If you are a previous CCEP grantee, you are more than welcome to apply again.
Yes! You are more than welcome to apply again.
Yes! Even if your health center is not selected as a CCEP grantee, Vot-ER would be thrilled to provide a wide range of free, customized nonpartisan tools and resources. Contact partnerships@vot-er.org. Your health center will receive:
- Unique Vot-ER voter registration links
- Customized facility materials including: digital materials, templates, and toolkits, texting language, and templated staff emails
- Opportunities to join learning communities with other health centers
- Vot-ER staff support and guidance
- Ability to order Vot-ER badges at-cost
Details About What Grantees Should Expect:
Depending upon the option selected and the size of the health center, grantees will receive between $3,000 – $10,500 for a eight-month grant cycle (April 7, 2026- December 11, 2026). These financial resources are meant to support health center staff time, technology, and tool creation and dissemination, staff travel, etc.
In addition to funding, grantees will receive:
- Free customized nonpartisan materials, including ‘badges’ for health center staff to use to support eligible patients as they register themselves to vote, texting language templates and toolkits, and digital tools and resources
- Training and support from Vot-ER staff
- Access to our CCEP learning community, where we celebrate and share best practices, strategies, and ways to overcome challenges. All grantees are expected to participate in these monthly learning community webinars.
No. Grantees may not use any of the grant funds for partisan political activities or for lobbying. These grant funds are only for voter education and voter engagement activities conducted on a nonpartisan basis.
Yes! We offer Spanish-translated materials for most, if not all, of our Vot-ER tools.
Unfortunately, at this time, Vot-ER can only provide materials in English or Spanish. We encourage our grantees who need other languages to partner with organizations that can provide these services, either pro bono or by using our CCEP funding to pay for material translation.
As part of your grant application, participants will confirm which nonpartisan civic engagement activities they commit to employing in their health center. Vot-ER has limited grant work to these options as they have historically led to the highest impact, ensuring the most eligible voters can register and turn out to vote through nonpartisan activations.
Depending on which grant option(s) applicants choose, grant deliverables include:
- Sending voting reminders via text message to patients
- Integrating voting reminders into your CHC’s Electronic Health Record system
- Emailing all staff with voter registration and “cast your ballot” reminders
- Implementing nonpartisan voter registration drives, building voter registration efforts into your health center’s existing navigator/health insurance enrollment efforts, integrating civic engagement messaging into their clinic and community events and electronic patient systems, becoming a polling location or ballot dropbox site, and distributing Vot-ER voter registration badges to staff
- Grantees will have opportunities to work closely with Vot-ER staff to strategize how to best achieve their project goals
- Grantees will be asked to join monthly learning community webinars to share best practices and strategies with other health centers doing similar work, including those in their state
- Grantees will be asked to complete a very short verbal midterm report and a short final report at the end of the program so that Vot-ER can learn about your efforts
Yes. To fulfill your commitment for grant funds, you will need administrative approval to take advantage of and maximize your efforts. Leadership buy-in is required and ensures a more competitive application.
Yes! Training will be provided by Vot-ER staff throughout the duration of the program. We will also host monthly learning community webinars so grantees can learn from one another, elevate strategies, and collaborate on overcoming challenges.
Grant Details and Logistics:
The completed application is due by 11:59 pm PT on Friday, February 27th, 2026.
While we review every written application with great care, we will conduct brief interviews with some applicants to understand their specific objectives better. These conversations are designed to be concise and will take no more than 30 minutes. To be eligible for this grant, your health center will need to participate in these brief interviews if applying for the CCEP grant, regardless of which grant option you choose.
We will notify all applicants by March 23, 2026.
The program runs from April 7, 2026, to December 11, 2026.
Nonpartisan Voter Registration Work and Health Centers:
Yes. The program’s civic engagement work is fully HIPAA-compliant and in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act. Eligible voters enter their own information into a secure voter registration system powered by Vot-ER’s partner, TurboVote. We will provide all grantees with a brief training on how to ensure this compliance as well.
Yes. All nonprofit 501(c)(3) charities (including CHCs, FQHCs, and other healthcare institutions) can operate voter registration drives if they do so in a nonpartisan manner. Health centers cannot use federal funds to conduct nonpartisan voter registration efforts, but they may use money from other sources for nonpartisan voter registration.
LEGAL NOTICE:
The program’s civic engagement work is fully HIPAA-compliant and in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act. Eligible voters enter their own information into a secure voter registration system.
All public healthcare institutions and all public or private nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations can operate voter registration drives if they do so in a nonpartisan manner. Health centers cannot use federal funds to conduct nonpartisan voter registration efforts.
Vot-ER will provide all grantees with training on how to ensure this compliance. It is the responsibility of each health center to seek guidance from their internal compliance/legal department.