Through BTU, faculty, staff, and students have access to funding resources aimed to align, scale, sustain, and institutionalize community engagement partnerships and efforts.
Through BTU, faculty, staff, and students have access to funding resources aimed to align, scale, sustain, and institutionalize community engagement partnerships and efforts.
BTU resources are intended to support partnership and community engagement work of faculty, staff, and students. There are many different forms of community engagement and partnership work within higher education. At Towson University, this work is seen as “a dynamic relational process that facilitates communication, interaction, involvement, and exchange between an organization and a community for a range of social and organizational outcomes” (Johnston 2018). Individuals seeking BTU support should craft requests with these parameters of community engagement and partnership work in mind.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the BTU team is shifting its focus of financial support to address needs at the intersection of community engagement, research and projects. As always we will do this work in collaboration with our partners. To adapt to the needs of our internal and external communities during fall 2020, resources were directed toward mitigating the loss of employment for TU students with primary funding supporting projects that involve the employment of TU students as research assistants. For spring 2021, we will continue to support this effort in addition to possibly community engagement projects for faculty that may be altering as conditions possibly change this spring.
Learn how BTU pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic and for examples of recently supported work.
To explore how BTU can support your community engagement work, contact Matthew Durington.
BTU Enrichment supports engagement activities such as event and material supplies, catering or meal needs, workshop supplies, gap funding, equipment, marketing materials, honorariums, stipends, and other activities directly related to qualifying community engagement and partnership work. Requests are limited to $2,000.
BTU Transportation supports the rental and/or utilization of vehicles, mileage reimbursement, and parking codes for faculty, staff, or students traveling off-campus, or partners traveling on-campus, for partnership and community engagement projects.
BTU National Visibility supports travel for individuals in the continental United States with direct relation to presenting community engagement work at conferences or events. Requests are limited to $1,000.
Prior to requesting funds, the project for which funding is being requested must be entered into the BTU Database.
Priority Investment funding is allocated as investments over a one to three year period, focused on scaling, sustaining, aligning, and institutionalizing leading TU community engagement partnerships and projects. Consideration is given to projects that are interdisciplinary, integrate student learning and high-impact practices, already involve external funding sources, and have scholarly dissemination potential or an existing track-record. Previous investments have ranged from $15,000 to $25,000.
Emerging Idea Investment funding is allocated for a one-year period, focused on supporting new and emerging community partnerships and projects. Consideration is given to proposals that are interdisciplinary and integrated with traditionally underserved populations. Previous investments have ranged from $4,000 to $8,000.