Funding for Research/Creative Work
The University of Denver’s vision is to be “a great private university dedicated to the public good.” As a means to achieving this vision, the Center for Community Engagement to advance Scholarship and Learning (CCESL) and the Office for Public Good Strategy & Research (OPG) oversees the Public Good Fund, an annual fund of $100,000 to promote and increase community-engaged research and creative work that involves faculty and community. Additionally, during the academic year 23-24, DU’s Office for Public Good Strategy and Research will recognize faculty mentoring excellence and advance their community-engaged signature work with undergraduate students with two awards through the Signature Faculty & Students Program.
What is Community-Engaged Scholarship?
At DU, community-engaged scholarship:
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Addresses public problems;
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Emphasizes the co-production of knowledge in the context of reciprocal and mutually beneficial partnerships with community stakeholders;
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Values critical approaches that strive for equity and inclusion;
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Demonstrates strong collaboration with community partners in all stages of the research or creative work process, from proposal and project development to implementation and dissemination.
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Includes dissemination to multiple audiences (e.g., traditional academic audiences, community audiences).
CCESL defines community broadly to include university-community partnerships with nonprofits, grassroots organizations, government agencies or entrepreneurs/businesses.

Signature Faculty & Students Program
The DU Signature Faculty and Student Program recognizes faculty with records of excellence in mentoring undergraduate signature work in order to support their capacity to mentor collaborative, community-engaged signature work that addresses DU Grand Challenges issue areas. DU’s Office of Public Good Strategy and Research will make two awards of up to $26,750 in AY 2023-24.
Learn More & Apply
Public Good Fund
Public Good Grants will be awarded in AY 2023-2024. Public Good Grants are available up to $20,000 for projects that will result in measurable public impact through community-engaged research or creative work that is conducted in the context of mutually beneficial and reciprocal community partnership.
Please note that the Public Good Fund Review Committee welcomes proposals with smaller budgets, particularly in cases where faculty are new to community-engaged research or working with relatively new community partners.
The 2023-2024 Public Good Fund call for proposals is now open. The deadline to submit proposals is March 4th, 2024.
Read the 2023-2024 RFPInfo Sessions
Faculty members doing community-engaged work or research are invited to an info session on November 8th and/or January 18th to learn more about crafting proposals for Public Good Grants.
Info Session Details & RegistrationPublic Good Fund Final Report Templates
If you've come to the end of your Public Good Fund project, please select the final report template that corresponds to the type of grant you received.
Past Recipients
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Public Good Grant Recipients
2022 - 2023
Ramona Beltrán | Graduate School of Social Work & Kelly Fayard, Anthropology
Project Title: Orange Shirt Day Denver Project – A Needs-Assessment for Denver Urban American Indian Survivors & Descendants of Indian Boarding Schools
Reginald Byron | Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
Project Title: Broadening the Impact of the Philadelphia Obituary Project
David Coppini & Kareem El Damanhoury | Media, Film, and Journalism Studies
Project Title: Digital Media Literacy for High Schoolers: Designing and Evaluating a Week-long Intervention
Roger Holland | Lamont School of Music
Project Title: Black Catholic Liturgical Renewal
Kamilah Legette | Psychology
Project Title: Promoting Positive Schooling Experiences in Denver Public Schools
2021-2022
Angela Narayan | Psychology
Project Title: A Child-Focused Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs) Scale for Community Providers who work with Families
Rebecca Galemba | Josef Korbel School of International Studies
Project Title: Due Process and the Dedicated Docket
Linda Mendez Barrientos | Josef Korbel School of International Studies
Project Title: Science to Empower: Leveraging groundwater-level modeling for domestic water security in California
Alejandro Ceron | Anthropology
Project Title: "Esencial: An online community archive to disseminate the stories of Colorado agricultural workers"
Sarah Bexell | Graduate School of Social Work. Institute for Human Animal Connection
Project Title: "Co-Creating K-12 Humane and Ecologically Minded Professional Development Programming
2020-2021
Kimberly Bender | Graduate School of Social Work
Project Title: Deepening understanding of young peoples’ sense of community and security in permanent supportive housing
Ashley Hamilton | College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, DU Prison Arts Initiative
Project Title: If Light Closed Its Eyes Documentary
Carol Helstosky & Elizabeth Escobedo | College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, History
Project Title: Veterans Legacy Program Continuation
2019-2020
Marquisha Scott & Dr. Aleysia Whitmore | Lamont School of Music, Ethnomusicology/Musicology
Project Title: Sacred Sounds and Social Justice
Matthew Taylor, College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics | Geography
Project Title: Assessing Water (In)Security at the Household Level During Times of Economic and Political Crisis in Nicaragua: Data for Action
Mike Nguyen, Morgridge College of Education | Higher Education
Project Title: Understanding the Educational Experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Andrea Stanton, College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences | Religious Studies
Project Title: Post-Conversion Experiences of Denver-based Converts to Islam
2018-2019
Jing Li, Paul Sutton, & Guiming Zhang | College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, Geography & the Environment
Project Title: Sacred Sounds and Social Justice
Elizabeth Campbell | College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, Center for Art Collection Ethics (ACE), History
Project Title: Ethical Stewardship of Native American Heritage
Yolanda Anyon, Kathryn Wiley, & Cassandra Johnson | Graduate School of Social Work
Project Title: Sankofic Journey to Inclusive and Affirming Early Care & Learning Environments for Black Children
Julia Roncoroni | Morgridge College of Education, Counseling Psychology
Project Title: Cook Eat Share: Community-Participatory Cookbook Project
Breigh Roszelle | Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Project Title: Development of Middle School STEM Workshops for Underrepresented Students
Shannon Allen | Morgridge College of Education, Center for Rural School Health & Education
Project Title: South Conejos Substance Use Prevention Collaborative
Krystyna Matusiak | Morgridge College of Education, Research Methods and Information Science (RMIS), Library and Information Science (LIS)
Project Title: Community Resilience: Preserving and Promoting the Park County Local History Archives
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Public Good BRIDGE Grant Recipients
2022-2023
Esteban Gómez & Bonnie Clark | Anthropology
Project Title: Snapshots of Confinement
Kristina Hesbol | Morgridge College of Education
Project Title: The Rural Innovative School Leadership Networked Improvement Community: Learning from Each Other Across Rural Communities
Hanson Nyantakyi-Frimpong | Geography & the Environment
Project Title: Northern Ghana Agroecology Project
María del Carmen Salazar | Morgridge College of Education
Project Title: Achieving Excellence Academy: A partnership between the Denver Public Schools and the University of Denver
2019-2020
Tara Raines | Morgridge College of Education
Project Title: Continuing the Sankofic Journey to Inclusive and Affirming Early Care & Learning Environments for Black Children
Krystyna Matusiak | Morgridge College of Education, Research Methods and Information Science (RMIS), Library and Information Science (LIS)
Project Title: Expanding the Reach and Sustaining the Park County Local History Digital Archive
2018-2019
Shannon Murphy, Robin Tinghitella, & Jennifer Hoffman | College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, Biological Sciences, Psychics & Astronomy
Project Title: DU SciTech 2019: Building STEM identification and scientific self-efficacy with girls of color in Denver
Marie Berry | Josef Korbel School of International Studies
Project Title: Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative
Past Funded Work
View some of the past work supported by a Public Good Grant.






The 2023-2024 Public Good Fund call for proposals is now open. The deadline to submit proposals is March 4th, 2024.
Note: CCESL programs, including this one, undergo an antiracist, anti-oppression review at least annually. In 2020, the review process led to revision of the program description and application materials; changes in the composition of review committee to include 1-2 community members; the addition of training for grant reviewers as well as information sessions for potential applicants.