PLEASE NOTE THIS APPLICATION CLOSED ON SEPT. 13, 2020.

National Voter Registration Day is a nonpartisan civic holiday celebrating our democracy. First observed in 2012, it has quickly gained momentum ever since. Nearly 3 million voters have registered to vote on the holiday to date! This year NVRD is on September 22.

CivicGeorgia is excited to serve as the National Voter Registration Day State Captain for Georgia, and we look forward to collaborating & supporting your community engagement plans for NVRD 2020!

GRANT OVERVIEW

In order to scale and support voter registration work in communities around Georgia, grants from CivicGeorgia will be available to eligible organizations and organizers hosting a registration event for National Voter Registration Day 2020. We hope your event can be hosted on or as near to September 22, 2020 as works best for your community.

Grants ranging from $100 - $300 will be awarded based on the scale of the applicant’s event or efforts, creative strategies and tactics to increase engagement, collaboration with other organizations, and need. Grant amounts will also be dependent on the number of eligible applicants, but we are ready to support between 20-40 organizations.

This grant is open to anyone organizing voter registration activities for NVRD, but as in all of our work, we especially seek to support:

* organizations led by and/or serving historically and presently marginalized and disenfranchised communities, including but not limited to people of color, our homeless sisters and brothers, immigrant and refugee families, LGBTQ+ folx, people of varying disability identities, young people, & currently and formerly incarcerated people
* youth-led organizations
* organizations new to hosting voter registration activities
* organizations who have not already received funding covering NVRD voter registration activities
* organizations operating in & serving rural Georgia communities

Please be sure to specify any relevant information in your application.

ORGANIZING AN EVENT

Planning and executing a successful voter registration event is tough work but can be incredibly beneficial for community building and engagement. Whether you are operating in-person, online, or a combination of the two, we seek to provide support to ensure the success of your voter registration event. We are actively listening to our partners’ concerns and updates to learn how we can best help y'all in preparation for your events.

Examples of COVID-conscious in-person events include drive-thru registration drives (best combined with something else to build an audience such as food or supplies pick up or COVID-testing operated by local health agencies) and drive-in events (movie or other content screening, parking lot concert, etc.). Please ensure social distancing, face mask usage, no open/shared food, and limited close interaction are a part of your plan if you are hosting in-person.

We highly encourage your team to build in opportunities to celebrate/share the act of registering to vote - whether these are signs for people to hold up, creative Zoom backgrounds, step-and-repeats for people (or cars!) all highlighting that "I registered to vote today!" - definitely share in your application about how you're doing this!

The National Voter Registration Day team has also designed special webinars and toolkits on digital outreach strategies for local groups, requesting absentee mail-in ballots, and more which are available as you sign up to partner (details below).

GRANT GUIDELINES

Grants can be used for, but are not limited to: printing posters, flyers, or banners; purchasing digital ads; promoting events on social media; purchasing food or entertainment; purchasing equipment/tools for an online event; transportation costs; and/or paying team members. These are just examples - if you have other planned expenditures not listed here, please share in your application to help us learn about your ideas!

ELIGIBILITY
 
To be eligible for a grant, applicants must fulfill the following requirements:

* Applicants must be registered as a Partner with National Voter Registration Day (if you have not already registered, please use this link: https://act.civicga.org/nvrd).
* Applicants' voter registration event must be non-partisan and in accordance with Georgia laws on voter registration as well as NVRD's partnership guidelines (viewable at https://act.civicga.org/nvrd).
* Applicants must be operating with a focus on communities in Georgia (be either Georgia-based or Georgia-local chapters/affiliates).
* Applicants do *not* need to be a 501(c)(3)/nonprofit.
 
TIMELINE

The application window has been extended to midnight (ET) on Sunday, Sept. 13! We will review applications on a rolling basis and reach out early next week (the week of Sept. 14).

THANK YOU

We would like to thank the National Voter Registration Day initiative and Non-Profit Vote organization for selecting us to serve as State Captain and for providing funds to enable this grant. We would also like to thank the Alliance for Youth Organizing, whose NVRD mini-grant application/process was a source for us in developing our application. We want to thank all of the organizers in Georgia working hard year-round to lift up the voices of our communities, and we want to thank you for applying!

ABOUT CIVICGEORGIA

CivicGeorgia works to increase the frequency and impact of community-led efforts for progress, rooted in a deep belief in the necessity of achieving equity and justice through and in civic engagement. In pursuit of this mission, we've collaborated with dozens of grassroots groups and organizational partners in issue-specific movement building, registering tens of thousands of voters, and empowering even more Georgians to be informed, active participants in our democracy. Please learn more and join our work at www.civicga.org.

Please send any questions or concerns you may have to nvrd@civicga.org.