2025 Request for Proposals:
Building Capacity and Community at U.S. Colleges and Universities
In 2025, the Educating Character Initiative intends to award grants to both individuals and institutions, varying in scale, focus, and expected impact.
Grants for Institutions
In this grant cycle, we anticipate awarding up to 10 Institutional Impact Grants of between $100,000 and $1,000,000, as well as 20 Capacity-Building Grants of up to $50,000. Successful grantees will be teams of faculty, staff, and administrators at U.S. colleges and universities with outstanding proposals for developing the moral, civic, and/or intellectual character and capacity of faculty, staff, and students.
To encourage an organic, inclusive, and context-sensitive approach, we seek to recognize existing expertise and work already done to focus on character education at partner institutions The Educating Character Initiative is prepared to offer context-specific support from Wake Forest staff, fellows, and consultants to aid institutions who seek to advance character education. These grants are meant to provide institutions with the time, resources, and freedom to discern what might work best in their context. Priority will be given to applications that show strong institutional support; clear alignment with the institution’s mission, vision, and values; the potential for integrating character in ways that are robust and impactful across the institution; a commitment to preparing students to engage the world beyond their institution; and a willingness to contribute to the community of character through shared wisdom and resources.
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Grants for Individuals
In addition to grants to institutions, we will award up to 10 Teacher-Scholar Grants of up to $15,000 to individuals who wish to research character education in higher education, deepen our collective understanding of character, and/or expand their capacity to educate character in their contexts. We welcome applications from individuals at all U.S. colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, or higher education organizations, including those whose institutions may not yet be part of the wider network. Project leaders and co-leaders of Institutional Impact or Capacity-Building Grants are not eligible for these individual grants, though other faculty and staff at the same institution who are not part of the proposed institutional project may do so.
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Download a PDF of the full 2024-2025 Request for Proposals here.
Please note that any changes to dates and deadlines for the 2025 grant cycle
will be reflected here: Institutional Impact Grants Dates to Remember, Capacity-
Building Grants Dates to Remember, and Teacher-Scholar Grants Dates to
Remember.