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Community Civic Engagement Program

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In collaboration with The National Association of Community Health Centers and AltaMed, Vot-ER's Community Civic Engagement Program (CCEP) is our flagship small grant program that expands non-partisan civic engagement through voter registration and turnout initiatives in community health centers.

Together with Community Health Centers, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and other similar organizations, we promote civic engagement using trusted messengers –– ultimately building stronger and healthier communities.

Vot-ER's CCEP program offers small grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 to participating partners, enabling them to integrate civic engagement initiatives into their existing healthcare center operations. These efforts include non-partisan voter registration and voter turnout drives.

Preview the application in full here.

Apply Now!

Our Grants Support:

Staff and technology costs
Free non-partisan materials - including Spanish language materials
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
Throughout the grant period, participants will have the opportunity to engage in various activities, such as sending voting reminders via text to patients, implementing voter registration drives, integrating civic engagement messaging into clinic and community events, building voter registration options into patient portals, and distributing Vot-ER voter registration badges to staff.
Apply Now!

Who Should Apply

We’re looking for community health centers and look-alikes that:

  • Have an interest in non-partisan voter engagement
  • Work in Black, Brown, Native, and low-income communities
  • Have leadership buy-in from their organization to engage in this type of work
  • Are able to send text messages to their patients through the health center‘s texting platform or by using tools made available through this program

CCEP 2024 Key Dates

  • APPLICATIONS OPEN: February 6, 2024
  • APPLICATIONS CLOSE: March 22, 2024
  • GRANTEES NOTIFIED: April 1, 2024
  • GRANT CYCLE BEGINS: May 1, 2024
  • GRANT CYCLE CONCLUDES: November 15, 2024

 

Applications are open!

Complete the application. If you have any questions, contact jonathan@vot-er.org.
Apply Now!

Frequently Asked Questions

Eligibility and How to Be A Competitive Applicant

Community Health Centers (CHCs), Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), and various health center look-alikes are able to apply to the program! As long as you are interested in building civic engagement efforts into your existing patient-facing work, we are eager to collaborate with you. We welcome a wide range of applicants, including those health centers that are experts at efforts like running voter registration drives or Get Out the Vote efforts as well as those who have never before ventured into this work. If you’re not quite sure if your health center meets this criteria, please reach out to Jonathan Flores, our CCEP Deputy Director, and we can think through your eligibility with you.

Our 2024 CCEP is enthusiastic about collaborating with community health centers predominantly serving Black, brown, American Indian/Alaska Native, LGBTQIA+, and other communities that have been historically disenfranchised. We are also eager to partner with community health centers serving rural populations, and young people.
Yes. Unfortunately, not all health centers that apply will be selected to receive funding. Approximately 50 health care centers will be awarded financial resources.

Even if you are not selected as a grantee, we are committed to making sure all interested partners have access to free Vot-ER non-partisan civic engagement tools that you can use at your health center.
There are several elements that would make your health center a more competitive applicant. This includes:
Working with historically disenfranchised communities, as referenced above;

- Having an interest in sending your patient community non-partisan voting-related reminders via text messaging, either using your own text messaging platform or one provided by this grant;
- Having buy-in from your organization’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 non-partisan voting actions rather than advocating to do this work internally; and
- Holding deep enthusiasm for building out the connections between voting and health amongst your patient communities.

Additionally, we seek to grant funds to a range of health centers, both those who have already participated in civic engagement efforts as well as those new to it. If you’ve done work in this space before, 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.

Details About What Grantees Should Expect

Depending upon scope of the proposed efforts and size of the health center, grantees will receive between $5,000 - $10,000 for a 6.5 month grant cycle (May 1, 2024- November 15, 2024). These financial resources are meant to support staff time, technology and tool creation and dissemination, staff travel, etc. No funds may be used for any lobbying or partisan electoral activity.

In addition to this funding, grantees will receive:
-  Free nonpartisan materials including ‘badges’ for health center staff to use to support patients as they register themselves to vote;
- Training and support from Vot-ER staff; and
- Access to our CCEP learning community, where we celebrate and share best practices, strategies, and ways to overcome challenges. It is expected that all grantees will participate in a majority of these monthly learning community webinars.

Yes! We offer Spanish-translated materials for most, if not all, of our Vot-ER tools.
Participants will choose which types of civic engagement activities they will employ in their health center to have the biggest impact. There is an opportunity to map out a grant cycle workplan in your application so please use that space to think about what approaches will best resonate with your communities. The different actions include, but are not limited to: sending voting reminders via text to patients, implementing 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, 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 accomplish their project goals, including Vot-ER Organizing Managers based in a number of the states where we anticipate grantees will be located. This one-on-one support from Vot-ER staff will be made available at grantees’ requests, in addition to there being an initial meeting to help get projects up and running.

Grantees will be asked to attend a majority of the monthly learning community webinars to share best practices and strategies with other health centers doing similar work, including in their own state. Grantees will be asked to complete a short final report at the end of the program.
In order to fully take advantage and maximize your efforts, leadership buy-in is highly recommended and ensures that you have a more competitive application.
While not required, Vot-ER has found that text messaging outreach to patients is an incredibly effective way to increase the numbers of people registering to vote and turning out to vote in elections. Applicants committed to engaging a text messaging effort are more competitive in this year’s grant-making cycle.

However, we recognize that not all community health centers have the ability to send text messages to their patient populations due to the nature of your center, funding constraints, etc. We have a smaller pool of funding available to ensure that those who cannot engage in text messaging can still be part of this initiative. Your application provides you an opportunity to explain what other high impact actions you would propose doing. Yes, being able to text your patients is critical for our program.
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, elevating strategies for replication and collaborating about how to overcome challenges.

Grant Details and Logistics

Join us on Friday, February 16, 2024 at 1PM ET for an 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. REGISTER FOR THE CCEP 2024 INFORMATIONAL WEBINAR HERE.
This webinar is optional.
The completed application is due by end of day on March 22, 2024.
We will notify all applicants by April 1, 2024.
The duration of the program is from May 1, 2024, to November 15, 2024.
Even if you are not selected as a grantee, we are committed to making sure all interested partners have access to free Vot-ER non-partisan civic engagement tools that you can use at your health center. We’re eager to collaborate with you as a partner in other ways.

Non-partisan Voter Registration Work and Health Centers

The program’s civic engagement work is fully HIPAA compliant; patients input their own information into a secure voter registration system and health care professionals do not retain any of this information themselves. We will provide all grantees with a brief training on how to ensure this compliance as well. . For more information, please review these tools from Vot-ER.
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 non-partisan manner.
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