Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Jan 2020 Open Access

Grantwriting Infrastructure for Grassroots Nonprofits: A Case Study and Resource for Attempting to ‘Return Stolen Things’

Zosha Stuckey

Abstract

In responding to conversations on engaged infrastructure, racial and reparative justice, and transformational WPA leadership, I call for more writing teachers and writing programs to take up grantwriting as a way to create much needed infrastructure for small, struggling grassroots nonprofits (NPOs). I detail G.I.V.E. (Grantwriting in Valued Environments), a community writing project at Towson University in the Baltimore metro area, where students are a primary, if not the main, source of research, grantwriting, and grants tracking for partner organizations via classwork, paid internships, and parttime employment. I problematize and locate this work within the nonprofit industrial complex and discuss the structure and functioning of grassroots organizations and how their particular milieu lends itself to projects like G.I.V.E. The project views equity as way to “return stolen resources” (Marcus and Munoz 2018), acknowledges the legacies of injustice in our communities, places students of color in leadership roles, and prioritizes work with under-resourced organizations that are led by folks from the community itself.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2020-01-01
DOI
10.59236/rjv19i2pp141-169
CompPile
Open Access
OA PDF Gold
Topics
service learning race and writing
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