Fund your dream project with Incite Institute - Incite at Columbia University

Have an idea for an initiative that brings people together to generate insight and incite change?

This summer, Incite Institute is making over $200,000 in grants available through three programs. Whether you’re an artist, activist, journalist, organizer, scholar, or community leader—and no matter where you are in the world—we may have a grant that’s right for you.

Assembling Voices

$25K for innovative public initiatives across America

Seeking its fourth cohort this year, Assembling Voices is a fellowship for artists, writers, scholars, journalists, performers, activists, workers, and others in the United States with compelling ideas for public initiatives that bring people together around issues of democracy, equity, and trust.

In addition to $25,000 in financial support, fellows will receive administrative and intellectual support, including tailored workshops held in New York City. Successful proposals are innovative in their design and presentation, reach diverse audiences, and address community-identified and community-specific needs.

Past Fellows have built programming with a variety of innovative forms, including a home movie archive, a fashion show, a community photography event, and a theatrical installation centering the experiences of unhoused people.

Some of the initiatives we support are brand new; others seek to achieve greater scale and depth with our support. We’re open to all ideas, and this year we’re especially interested in projects related to environmental justice, disability justice, performing arts, and/or technology.

Key Dates

• 06/26: Applications open

• 07/10, 12P ET/9 PT: Information session #1

• 07/24, 3P ET/12 PT: Information session #2

• 08/15, 11:59P ET: Applications due

• 09/3-6: Interviews and decisions

Global Change Program

Up to $25K for change-makers around the world

Through the Global Change Program (GCP), Incite provides grants to leaders of initiatives across the globe that offer innovative, community-centered approaches to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate breakdown, access to education, interstate conflict, and public health crises, among others.

This year, after a successful pilot with Colombian community think tank Re-imaginemos, GCP will award several grants ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 to change-makers around the world.

GCP is open to change-makers of all kinds, including activists, organizers, community leaders, scholars, and artists. In many cases, initiatives we support will be brand new; others may be existing but seek to move in new directions, experiment with new methods, or achieve greater scale and depth.

Awardees will remain in the field during the award year while receiving intellectual support from Incite, including facilitated collaboration with a center or institute of their preference at Columbia University.

Key dates

• 06/26: Applications open

• 07/16, 7A ET/11 UTC: Information session #1

• 07/25, 1P ET/17 UTC: Information session #2

• 08/9, 11:59P ET: Applications due

• 08/30: Decisions released

Left Field Fund

Up to $5,000 for projects that advance our mission

Have an idea for a project that doesn’t fit our existing funding programs, but meets our mission? New this year, the Left Field Fund may be able to grant your project up to $5,000.

The Left Field Fund Committee meets every two months to review 250-word proposals.

Pitch us on our website.

About Incite Institute

Incite is an interdisciplinary institute at Columbia University. We join with people and organizations within and outside the university to rethink our understanding of what knowledge is, how it’s created, and how it can be used.