As part of the Alumni TIES program, all participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with other exchange alumni to develop an Alumni TIES small grant project. Alumni TIES small grants (up to $10,000 USD per grant) are awarded on a competitive basis, based on the proposed project’s connection to the seminar’s theme, innovation, feasibility, realistic timeline, and participatory approach to community engagement. The small grant application is due 30 days after the last day of the seminar.
Since 2016, the Alumni TIES program has awarded 247 small grants to Alumni TIES participants. These small grant projects have affected the lives of people in 260 communities around the world. Please take a moment to read about some of these small grant projects on the Alumni TIES Medium blog.
To help participants develop their project idea and manage their awarded grant, all participants will be given access to the Alumni TIES Small Grants Management course on the learning management system, Canvas.
The Small Grants Management course is a self-guided, optional online course to help you plan, implement, and manage a community engagement project. The course has 15 modules on the subtopics of project design, project management, and project evaluation. This course is designed to help those who do not have the background or those who wish to learn other approaches of how to design and implement a community engagement project funded by a small grant. If you complete the assignments in the course you can receive e-verified, open badges, which are skill-based digital credentials. You can share your badges on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter or download and print them as certificates.