Apply Today: SOLVE 2024-2025 Southern Spark Grants

The 2024-2025 SOLVE Southern Spark Grants are designed to provide support to community-based organizations in their efforts to fight for a participatory, responsive, inclusive, and expansive democracy. As we prepare for upcoming election cycles, these grants are intended to spark organizational capacity building related to election protection, civic education, engagement, and participation work around issues that are most pressing in their community.  

The SOLVE Southern Spark Grants are one-year project support grants. Grant awards will be in the amount of $10,000. We anticipate making 30 grant awards for this program across SOLVE’s partner states: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas. The SOLVE Leadership Council and other SOLVE-state-based evaluators will make funding decisions based on evaluations of the eligibility criteria and priorities below. Administrative support for the grant program is provided by Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ).    

To be eligible for the 2024-2025 SOLVE Southern Spark Grant opportunity, applicants must meet all of the following criteria:   

• Organize for equitable and inclusive representation with historically underrepresented communities.   
• Possess a vision for how voting rights advance social, economic, racial, political, and environmental justice.   
• Be led by Black, Latinx/Hispanic, Indigenous, Asian American Pacific Islander, queer and trans, rural, low-wealth, and/or working-class communities.  
  • Leadership is defined as individual members of these communities who hold decision-making authority over the applicant’s priorities. Examples of decision-making roles could include executive directors, founders, presidents, board members, an advisory council, or group leaders.  
• Have an annual operating budget under $1 million.  
• Be located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, or Virginia.  

Note: 501(c)(3) status is not required to apply, but please remember that projects must be 501(c)(3) compliant and/or not be listed in the “What We Cannot Fund” section. This opportunity is open to proposals from 501(c)(3)s, fiscally sponsored groups or organizations, LLCs, individuals, or unincorporated groups or organizations. Regardless of the project, we are unable to fund 501(c)(4)s. If you have any questions about IRS tax-exempt status, please contact solve@scsj.org.    

We will prioritize supporting organizations or groups that meet one or more of the following criteria:  

• A project proposal that focuses on civic engagement, specifically civic participation.   
• A project proposal that focuses on building infrastructure for election protection efforts for the 2024 General Election.  
• Have an existing civic engagement project serving historically underrepresented populations that could be expanded and bolstered with additional funding.  
• SOLVE Network members.  
• Previous SOLVE grant recipients and applicants.  

The 2024-2025 SOLVE Southern Spark Grants are one-year, $10,000 project support grants intended to support projects focused on increasing civic participation and civic engagement in historically underrepresented communities. With anti-democratic efforts on the rise and given the need for increased civic engagement and election protection activities, we are most interested in projects that:   

• Support communities in becoming civically involved and projects that support communities in their fight for the right to have their votes counted and their right to vote protected.   
• Use advocacy, education, organizing, mobilization, and/or communications strategies to promote civic participation and engagement in underrepresented communities.   
• Aim to help ensure that voters feel safe from harassment and intimidation at the polls.    
• Aim to ensure that people understand what is needed to cast a ballot.   

Below are examples of potential fundable, eligible projects:   

• Training community members to be poll observers or canvass monitors.   
• Community education initiative that provides information to voters about voter rights at the polls, how voters can obtain assistance should they need it while voting, or the materials necessary for a voter to cast a ballot.   
• Education project about voter ID requirements, which disproportionately impact communities of color, disabled communities, trans communities, and many others.    
• Communications campaign about the importance of voting and building the habit of voting in each election.   
• Trainings for non-English speaking community members who are eligible to vote about what their rights are at polls.   
• Projects that engage multiple identities and multi-racial alliance building as core to their pro-democracy work.   

These are just examples of potential projects and are not an exhaustive list of projects that may be funded.

• 501(c)(4) organizations.  
• Projects that include voter registration activities.  
• Projects that include lobbying, political, or partisan activity.  
• Projects with indirect costs equal to or greater than direct costs. Direct costs are expenses specific to the project, while indirect costs are expenses required to run the organization as a whole.  
• Projects that focus exclusively on direct services without a civic engagement or participation component.  
• Organizations or groups who are current legal clients of SCSJ.     
• Organizations, groups, and/or projects based outside of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, or Virginia.   
• Organizations or groups that do not meet the eligibility requirements.  
• SOLVE Leadership Council Member organizations.   
• Current/Previous SOLVE grantees that are not in good standing with current/previous grants. Good standing means that for the 2022 Southern Movement Grants, the 2023 SOLVE Spark Grants, or multiple grants were/are in compliance (meeting all grant agreement terms and conditions) and that all grant reporting is complete and current.