Through our Project Grant program, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics provides funding to support events and activities related to the Center’s two-year-long themes of inquiry. The program is open to community organizations, statewide nonprofits, and University of Oregon faculty, departments, programs, and student groups. Past projects include lectures, conferences, organizing and education on pressing issues, performances, a mobile lending-library of tools for unhoused Eugenians, film festivals, research resulting in policy recommendations, and much more.
The application deadline has passed for the grant year that begins July 1, 2024, and ends June 30, 2025. We will announce our 2025-2027 theme of inquiry and the 2025-26 Project Grant application timeline in early 2025, if not before.
2024-25 Project Grants
Civics Learning Project
Central to a healthy democracy is the ability of its people to engage in constructive discourse, consider diverse perspectives, and reach compromise in order to generate effective solutions to pressing problems. Civics Learning Project has heard from Oregon teachers who feel ill-equipped to help their students engage in civil dialogue on contentious but important topics. With funding from the Wayne Morse Center, CLP will offer professional development opportunities that give teachers the tools to create safe, culturally responsive civic spaces for discussion in their classrooms. Workshops will be held in in the Southern Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, Central Oregon, Eastern Oregon, and at the annual Oregon Civics Conference. CLP will partner with UO Assistant Professor of Psychology Mariah Kornbluh to design and evaluate the workshops. Dr. Kornbluh’s recent research focuses on understanding how to help teachers access and implement evidence-based practices in civics education, including the discussion of controversial issues. She will work with her undergraduate and graduate students to develop a manuscript to share findings from CLPs workshops with the larger public.
Eugene Friends of the Farm Workers
EFFW will use its grant to promote and host two events at the Lane County Fairgrounds on October 10, 2024. During the day, the Lane County History Museum will open its doors (10 am to 7 pm) so visitors can explore their special exhibit on EFFW's pursuit of justice for farm laborers during the 1970s and César Chavez’s influence on Eugene. That evening, EFFW invites the public to a family-friendly concert to raise awareness of and support for PCUN, Oregon’s farm worker union. The bilingual event will feature Austin-based singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa and include updates from PCUN’s president on the organization’s current work empowering farmworkers and working Latinx families in Oregon, increasing Latinx representation in elections, and advocating for policy change at the state and national levels.
League of Women Voters of Oregon
The League of Women Voters of Oregon Youth Council is a nonpartisan alliance of civic-minded leaders from Oregon high schools and colleges that promotes informed voter education and engagement to build a more vigorous and inclusive democracy among young and future Oregon voters. With support from the Wayne Morse Center, the Council will engage their peers in voter registration drives, youth-led workshops, panel discussions, and a Youth Civic Engagement Summit to encourage Oregon's youth, including those in underserved communities, to amplify their voices in our participatory democracy.
Next Up
Next Up is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that amplifies the voices and leadership of diverse young people to achieve a more just and equitable Oregon. Their project grant supports two programs that provide on-ramps for young people to engage and take leadership in local democracy. 1) Paid, non-partisan Youth Vote Organizer internships train high school and college students to organize and lead voter registration efforts at their own schools and to talk with their peers about the power of voting. 2) UPTURN Leadership Academy, a four-week introductory-level workshop series, teaches cohorts of 50-60 young people the basics of community-centered work and encourages building collective power for a just democracy.
Rural Organizing Project
This funding will support Rural Organizing Project's training hub and civic engagement workshops for the ROP Field Office and the Hood River Latino Network Immigrant Help Center, focusing on education and information for new citizens voting for the first time, rural voters, and rural youth voters.